The effects of plastic bag extracts prepared in either mouse serum or phosphate‐buffered saline with ethanol on mouse splenic cells

Chemicals leached from plastic blood bags are potentially immunogenic when introduced parenterally into humans. The experiments reported here represent an attempt to sensitize B6C3F1 mice to parenteral injections of solutions used to extract potentially immunogenic material from plastic blood bags. Mice were given intraperitoneal injections: blood bag extracts prepared from phosphate-buffered saline and ethanol; mouse red cells stored in extract solution; or blood bag extracts prepared from mouse serum. None elicited a significant in vitro immunologic reaction as determined by 3H-thymidine or 3H-leucine uptake into spleen cells. In contrast, intraperitoneal injections in mice of large amounts (0.5 ml) of the phosphate-buffered saline and ethanol extracts decreased spleen cellularity to 59 percent of the control value and reduced spleen cell blastogenic activity in vitro. When solutions of either mouse serum extract or mouse cells stored in extract were given intraperitoneally to mice, no spleen toxicity or increased blastogenic activity was observed. In addition, the extracts obtained from plastic blood bags by using either allogenic serum or buffered saline and ethanol did not elicit an immunologic response when they were administered parenterally to mice.