ABSTRACT
The effects of bilateral adrenalectomy (Ax) and glucocorticosteroid (GCS) treatment on the migratory behavior of circulating T cells in mice were evaluated by a 51Cr lymphocyte migration assay and two graft-versus-host (GVH) assays. The major new findings were that bilaterally adrenalectomizing a mouse effects it in two interrelated ways: 1) It decreases the accumulation of adoptively transferred 51Cr-labeled T cells to the bone marrow; and 2) it reduces the GVH reactivity of bone marrow cells. We also confirmed previous studies showing increases in the accumulation of T cells and increases in T cell-mediated GVH reactivity in the marrow of GCS-treated mice. We conclude that Ax has an opposite effect to that of GCS treatment on the intramarrow traffic of T cells and on T cell-mediated GVH reactivity of marrow cells.
