The Contrasting Immunosuppressant Effects of Acriflavine and Dietary Restriction

One course of acriflavine given 2 days before and continued for 14 days after the initial i.v. injection of 100 mg BSA and 25 mg BGG induced a prolonged degree of immune paralysis in some rabbits. Acriflavine treatment minimally prolonged the survival time of rabbit allogencic skin grafts. Daily vitamin supplements had no effect upon the immune response in control or acriflavine-treated animals. A 28-day period of dietary restriction beginning on the day of the initial i.v. injection of 100 mg BSA and 25 mg BGG caused suppression of the early phases of immunogenesis but did not induce a prolonged degree of immune paralysis. The immunosuppressant effect of the dietary restriction employed in these experiments could not be accounted for on the basis of serum protein depletion and was not reversed completely by daily vitamin supplements. Immune sera may exhibit distinct differences in their precipitating and hemagglutinating capacities, indicating the need for more than one parameter of antibody assay when a quantitative immunochemical measure of the primary interaction between an antibody and its specific antigen is not available.