Abstract

Small intestinal mucosa contains both thymus dependent and thymus independent lymphoid cells and thus has the capacity to act via humoral and cellular mechanisms as a site of local immunity and local hypersensitivity. Allograft rejection of mouse small intestine is a model of a local cell mediated reaction. The effects of this clearly defined, immunologically mediated damage villi, crypts, enterocytes, and lymphoid cell infiltrate have been assessed by comparing the morphology of rejecting allografts with that of isografts and normal small intestine of the same age. In rejection there is infiltration of the lamina propria with lymphocytes, hyperplasia of the crypts of Lieberkuhn, and an eventual sloughing off of the mucosa. Usually, but not always, there is villous atrophy and increased numbers of intraepithelial lymphocytes. However, the morphology of individual enterocytes remains normal throughout rejection and neither plasma cells nor polymorphonuclear leucocytes infiltrate the lamina propria before mucosal ulceration. These results show unequivocally that a local T cell mediated immune response causes villous atrophy and crypt hyperplasia in this animal model, and since there is no evidence of local enterocyte cytotoxicity, a lymphokine may be the link between the activated T cell and the effects on mucosal architecture. We suggest that a local CMI reaction may be the cause of villous atrophy, crypt hyperplasia, and malabsorption in many clinical and experimental conditions, including coeliac disease, food allergy, and intestinal infections.