Responsiveness of rabbit spleen and appendix cells to bacterial mitogens

Rabbit spleen and appendix cells were used to test the mitogenic activity of a commercial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) preparation from Salmonella typhimurium (Difco), a preparation extracted from it, and cell wall preparations from smooth (45/0) and rough (45/20) strains of Brucella abortus. On the basis of [3H]thymidine incorporation ratios (E/C), that is, the incorporation rate among cells treated with the mitogen relative to that of untreated cells, the extracted LPS and both Brucella cell wall preparations, but not the commercial LPS were potent mitogens for rabbit spleen cells. By the same criterion, only the Brucella cell wall preparation produced a significant, but minimally so, response among appendix cells. The weak responsiveness of appendix cells may be more apparent than real, however, and may not imply a difference in intrinsic susceptibility to mitogens by these two populations, because unstimulated appendix cells incorporated thymidine at 10 times the rate of unstimulated spleen cells. Appendix cells, then, may not be susceptible to further stimulation, even by active mitogens. Therefore, the significance of E/C ratios may be equivocal when materials are assayed for mitogenic activity on lymphoid populations whose basal activity is relatively high.