Antibody production in pyridoxin-deficient rats.

Stoerk & Eisen (1946) and Stoerk, Eisen & John (1947) reported that pyridoxindeficient rats immunized with sheep erythrocytes developed serum-antibody (haemagglutinin) levels far below those of inanition control rats and of rats fed a complete diet ad lib. Axelrod, Carter, McCoy & Geisinger (1947), using human erythrocytes as an antigenic stimulus, obtained similar results. I t seemed of interest to attempt to confirm these findings and to use not only sheep erythrocytes but also a killed culture of a pathogenic organism, Bacterium typhosum. Further, as Stoerk et al. (1947.) reported a striking reduction in the number of fixed and circulating lymphocytes in pyridoxindeficient rats, it seemed worth studying the effect of pyridoxin deficiency on lymphoid tissue in the rat, particularly as the work of White & Dougherty (1946) indicated the importance of the lymphocyte in antibody formation by virtue of the elaboration of y-globulin.