Cell populations in a renal lesion produced by local injection of xenogeneic spleen cells in cyclophosphamide-treated rats.
The frequency and distribution of donor and host lymphoid cells in different stages of a lesion produced by injecting mouse spleen cells beneath the renal capsules of rats treated 24 h previously with cyclophosphamide have been studied by immunofluorescent staining with species-specific anti-lymphocyte sera. Donor cells were predominant in the early stages of the reaction and penetrated the outer part of the renal cortex, but by day 7 when the lesion reached its maximum extent most of the infiltrating cells were of host origin. Donor cells never extended deeply into the kidney and they were not uniformly intermingled with the main mass of host cells but their presence seemed to be necessary for the maintenance of the reaction, since it began to decline when donor cells were no longer detectable in the injected kidney.