[Ability of amino acid components of proteins to stimulate the thymus-dependent immune response]

The ability of protein amino acids to facilitate differentiation of mouse bone marrow cells into T lymphocytes in vitro and to stimulate primary immune response to sheep red blood cells in vivo was studied. Nine out of twenty amino acids (aspartic acid, asparagine, glutaminic acid, cysteine, serine, threonine, tryptophan, alanine and valine) were shown to possess immunologic activity, with the highest activity revealed in aspartic acid.