The effect of prenatal chlordane exposure on the delayed hypersensitivity response of BALB/c mice

Previous studies in our laboratory have indicated that in utero chlordane exposure caused a significant enhancement in the survival of the offspring to influenza virus infection. Further studies, reported here, show that the non-specific delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) response to oxazolone at 100 days of age, but not at 30 days of age, was significantly depressed. In contrast, the Con A-induced blastogenic response of spleen cells from chlordane-treated offspring was not depressed and was, in fact, significantly enhanced. However, neither the response to PHA nor to LPS mitogens was significantly altered. In utero exposure to chlordane significantly depressed the mixed lymphocyte reactivity (MLR) of spleen cells from male offspring, whereas females showed no significant alteration of MLR. The significant depression of the DTH and MLR responses supports our previous reports of enhanced survival of influenza virus infection following in utero exposure to chlordane, since active DTH contributes to the pathology of influenza virus infection in mice. The normal or enhanced T-cell mitogen response suggested that the chlordane-induced depression of DTH and MLR was not due to overt toxicity to T-cells.