[A study on type II collagen induced arthritis in mice]

Pathogenesis and regulation of type II collagen (IIC) induced arthritis (CA) were investigated in mice system. CA could be successfully induced in hundred percent female mice of DBA/1J strain following immunization by an intradermal injection with emulsion of bovine IIC plus Freund's complete adjuvant into the tail base and a subsequent challenge injection with IIC in saline in the same place. The incidence and severity of the CA were suppressed by an intraperitoneal injection with a mouse gamma-globulin: histamine conjugate. On the other hand, neither histamine nor mouse gamma-globulin alone showed no suppressive effect and the former markedly accelerated the onset of the CA and augmented the severity. Next, we analyzed incidence of CA in allogeneic bone marrow chimeras prepared by using the combination of DBA/1J (H-2q, Igh-1c, Hc1) and SWR/J (H-2q, Igh-1c, Hco) mice the latter of which are unable to generate CA. As previously described, only chimeras where DBA/1J were used as recipient of bone marrow showed complement 5 (C5) in sera. Further, CA incidence was quite high (90%) in such chimeras. By contrast, none of chimeric mice where SWR/J were used as recipient showed serum C5 and CA. The result of chimera experiments indicated that C5 level in sera was one of the determinants in CA induction and that lymphoid cells of SWR/J mice themselves had no deficiency in inducing the CA.