| Abstract: | Experiments on male CBA mice have shown that androgens modulate the function of the immune system depending on its initial functional status. Studies of humoral immune response in mice during ontogeny have revealed that the most pronounced activation of the immune system coincides with the beginning of the sexual maturation (18-30 days). Gonadectomy of 18-days-old mice causes retardation of the functional maturation of the immune system but that of 1 month-old mice, on the contrary, intensifies the immune response. It is supposed that this period of life is one of the key periods of the humoral immunity development. Long-term decrease of the testosterone level in blood of mice castrated after puberty induces untimely extinction of the immune reactivity comparable with that in old animals. |
