Development of immune tolerance in the chick embryo to Borrelia hispanica

Varying degrees of immune tolerance were induced in chick embryos at 10, 14, and 18 days of age by inoculation of living or dead Borrelia hispanica in the yolk sac, allantoic cavity, or intravenously. Relative tolerance was measured by responses to challenge with virulent organisms in relation to altered susceptibility to infection and inability to produce agglutinins for B. hispanica or Proteus strain OXK. Challenges were made 1 week posthatching with the controls and chicks that had received dead organisms embryonically, and all chicks and controls were challenged at 5-week intervals from the 5th through the 30th week posthatching. Infections persisted 7 to 12 days in the tolerant chicks without a recurring parasitemia. Control chicks were never infected, and in almost all instances produced agglutinins. Differences in degree and duration of tolerance were observed in relation to the age of the embryo injected and may, or may not, have been related to differences of antigenic mass. Differences in induced tolerance were also observed in the three inoculation routes (intravenous > allantoic cavity > yolk sac, with the first route as the greatest) with chicks that had received dead organisms embryonically, but not with those that had received living organisms. Tolerance was not transmitted to the progeny of tolerant pullets.