Effect of thymectomy and bursectomy on precipitin and natural hemagglutinin production in the chicken

Antibody Production in Chickens Thymectomized as Embryos and Pigeons Thymectomized at Hatching

“…Therefore, it appears that if the thymus is removed sufficiently early in life, impairment in antibody synthesis to some antigens may occur. Previous investigations have also demonstrated a reduction in mean titers of antibody [5,7] in neonatally thymectomized chickens. In each of these studies a number of birds were included which produced no antibody and if one calculates the mean for chickens responding, the amount of antibody is the same as that of normal chickens [14].…”

Immunogenetics of the Chicken

“…The chicken has been widely used as a vehicle for immunological research. In recent years this is particularly so in connection with the role of the thymus in the development of immunological competence, [3,38,82,83], in studying immunological tolerance [52,53,54] and transplantation immunity and histocompa tibility [27,40,41,42,71,77,78]. Mitchison [52,53,54] has shown that tolerance requires the persistence of the antigen inducing it.…”

<i>In vitro</i> Studies of Chicken Lymphoid Cells

“…The effect of thymectomy on the antibody response of the chicken is subject to some controversy. Thym ectomy alone did not impair the antibody response to human gamma globulin [5] and erythrocytes [26] and impaired the response to bovine serum albumin in only a small fraction (6 %) of the animals [22], C o o per et al [15] reported that a significant proportion of thymectomized-irradiated chickens were unable to produce antibodies against Brucella abortus antigen and bovine serum albumin, but no significant difference was noted between the group means.…”