A comparison of regional and systemic humoral immune responses to a nematode infection

The kinetics of humoral immune response against Trichinella spiralis (TS) was characterized with immunofluorescence assay. The mesenteric lymph nodes (MLN) and the spleen of infected rats were examined for concurrent expression of multiple antibody (Ab) isotypes from day 1 to day 15 after infection. The tissues were processed and stained with either a pan-B cell marker (OX33) conjugated with rhodamine (XRITC) or combinations of dual monoclonal Ab probes plus A secondary Ab conjugated with XRITC or fluorescein (FITC). As compared to the uninfected controls, the spleen and the MLN showed significant proliferation of dual-Ab expressing B cells (Debc) on days 5 and 7, respectively. During the immune response, only minimal numbers of B cells expressed single Ab isotype while most B cells expressed more than one isotypes of Ab. When combining all the numbers of Debc within each tissue for each respective days, and comparing those numbers with the total numbers of B cells that were OX33+ in the serial sections of the same tissue specimens, the combined Debc in the spleen were > 6 times higher than the OX33 labeled B cells on day 10, and the Debc in MLN were > 3 times higher than the OX33+ B cells on day 10. Our results thus indicate that the Debc most likely expressed more than two Ab isotypes during the peak days of the humoral immune response to the parasite and this phenomenon occurred in both regional and systemic lymphoid tissues.