Lymph node cell vaccination against the lupus syndrome of MRL/lpr/lpr mice

Immunization with pathogenic lymphoid cells has been shown to induce resistance to disease in experimental animal models of cell mediated autoimmunity. In the present work we tested the effectiveness of this approach in a spontaneous murine autoimmune disease, the MRL/lpr/lpr (MRL/1) murine lupus model. We now report that the anti-DNA antibodies and glomerulonephritis of MRL/1 mice could be prevented by the adoptive transfer of spleen cells from MRL/+ mice that had been vaccinated with MRL/1 lymph node T lymphocytes, but not by direct vaccination of MRL/1 mice with their cells. These results indicate that the lupus of MRL/1 mice is susceptible to regulation by adoptive vaccination and that these autoimmune mice lack the ability to raise a suppressive response against their own pathogenic cells.