Intestinal and serum antibody responses in mice after oral immunization with Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and Salmonella-Escherichia coli hybrid strains.

After oral feeding of mice with avirulent Salmonella, Escherichia coli, or hybrid strains, only certain bacterial strains were able to multiply and persist within the small intestinal Peyer's patches. After oral vaccination alone, or oral priming and subsequent parenteral boosting, antibody class and titers were detected, using a radioimmunoassay on serum and intestinal fluid or a plaque-forming cell assay on spleens. Only those strains that persisted in the Peyer's patches stimulated the production of serum and intestinal immunoglobulin A antibodies against their respective O antigens. Nonpersistent strains were weakly immunogenic, and antibodies, when present, were largely non-immunoglobulin A and confined to the serum.