Amelioration by adrenalectomy of the homologous wasting disease induced in irradiated hybrid mice by injection of parental lymphoid cells.

Prior adrenalectomy reduced the susceptibility of sublethally irradiated hybrid mice to the homologous wasting disease induced by injection with parental thymic cells. The mechanism of this protection was not established in a small series of mice injected with spleen cells the microscopic manifestations of wasting disease seemed more severe in both the intact and adrenalectomized groups. Possible immunologic mechanisms involved in response to homologous cells are discussed. (C.H.)