Suppressor T-cell activity induced as a result of thermal injury.

Many thermally injured patients survive their initial trauma only to succumb to infection at 2 to 4 weeks after the burn. Both clinical and experimental data have suggested that acute thermal insult compromises immune function. In this report we have sequentially examined the ability of thermally injured mice to generate a specific in vitro primary antibody-forming cell (AFC) response to sheep red blood cells (SRBC) at various times after thermal injury. Thermally injured mice appear to lose the ability to generate de novo antibody-forming cells in vitro after thermal injury. The defect was dissected as to the involvement of macrophage (φ), thymus-derived cell (T-cell), or bursal equivalent (B-cell) defects. Murine B cells from burned animals exhibited normal immunological function in the in vitro AFC system. T cells from burned mice were demonstrated as not only dysfunctional in the generation of immune AFC, but also as able to suppress generation of an AFC response by syngeneic normal cells.