Immunological induction of flavour aversion in mice. II. Passive/adoptive transfer and pharmacological inhibition

Mice immunized with ovalbumin develop a strong aversion to ingesting sweetened egg white dilutions or ovalbumin solutions. In immunized animals, gavage or voluntary ingestion of ovalbumin triggers an increase of vascular permeability in the intestine; pretreatment with a mixture of histamine and serotonin antagonists blocked this reaction, but not the aversion; dexamethasone inhibited both the aversion and the increase in permeability. The aversion was transferred to normal recipient mice with high-titre anti-Ova sera obtained with complete Freund's adjuvant, but not with lower-titre serum pools of mice immunized with the help of Al(OH)3 adjuvant. However, the aversion was also (adoptively) transferred with whole spleen cells from immune donors. This later condition is inefficient to transfer the formation of high titres of specific antibodies.