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Suppression of the immune response to Trichuris muris in lactating mice

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2009

Gwendoline R. Selby  and
D. Wakelin
Gwendoline R. Selby
Affiliation:
Wellcome Laboratories for Experimental Parasitology, University of Glasgow, Bearsden Road, Glasgow G61 1QH
D. Wakelin
Affiliation:
Wellcome Laboratories for Experimental Parasitology, University of Glasgow, Bearsden Road, Glasgow G61 1QH
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Extract

Mice infected with Trichuris muris during lactation were unable to expel the infection at the normal time, but expulsion occurred when lactation was terminated. Suppression of expulsion was uniform in mice suckling more than five young but variable with smaller litters. Mice exposed to a primary infection while lactating were shown to have serum antibodies capable of passively transferring immunity to recipient mice and showed near normal immunity to a secondary infection given after lactation had ceased.

Acquired immunity to T. muris was also suppressed by lactation, but the worms which became established in lactating resistant mice were fewer and smaller than those in non-lactating, non-resistant controls.

It is suggested that the suppressive effect of lactation in this hostparasite relationship is exerted on the second, lymphoid cell-mediated phase of worm expulsion.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 71 , Issue 1 , August 1975 , pp. 77 - 85
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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