Failure of Passive Transfer of Homograft Sensitivity in Mice by Means of Extracts of Sensitised Lymphoid Cells

The claim that passive transfer of homograft sensitivity could be achieved by the “injection of the supernatant obtained from tissue-sensitized lymphoid cells ⃛ by sonic vibration” (Najarian and Feldman, 1963) has been investigated. We repeated the original experiments, but could not confirm the observation; furthermore, we could not transfer homograft sensitivity passively with extracts of sonicated sensitised lymphoid tissue from different sites (spleen or pooled lymph-nodes or draining lymph-nodes), or with extracts of lymphoid tissue of mice sensitised with grafts from several strains. In our hands, extracts of sonicated sensitised lymphoid tissue invariably failed to produce accelerated graft rejection.