The induction of an inflammatory chronic disease which was termed "adjuvantinduced polyarthritis" with the inoculation of heat-killed tubercle bacilli in mineral oil [12][13][14][15]18] or with wax D of the human tubercle bacilli in a water-in-oil emulsion [15,20] were reported previously by Pearson and his co-workers. Some of the reports described the usefulness of adjuvantpolyarthritis for testing of drugs for antiinflammatory activity, because the pathogenicity of adjuvant-arthritis in rats resembled certain human rheumatoid syndromes [11,13,17].On the mechanism of adjuvant-polyarthritis, it has been reported that the delayed type hypersensitivity of the tubercle bacilli was involved [9,16]. Wood et al [20] and Jolles and his co-workers [7,8] had shown relationships between the chemical structure and arthritogenicity of mycobacterial wax D and cell walls. They had concluded that the arthritogenicity of wax D and cell walls was lost by acetylation, but rats injected with acetylated wax D were protected against the arthritogenicity of unaltered wax D [8].In previous papers, we had shown that the principal chemical structure of cell walls of corynebacteria, nocardia and mycobacteria, and that of the wax D fraction from mycobacteria were of a "mycolic acidarabinogalactan-mucopeptide" complex [5]. The adjuvanticity in immune response of the cell walls and their derivatives prepared from corynebacteria, nocardia and mycobacteria were also reported [2,4]. This paper presents the adjuvant-arthritogenicity of the cell walls and their derivatives of mycobacteria, nocardia and corynebacteria.Sprague Dawley rats, females, weighing approximately 150 to 200 g at 8 weeks of age, were used throughout the experiments. They received 0.1 to 1 mg of the bacterial cells, cell walls, cell wall derivatives and wax D which were suspended in 0.05 ml of liquid paraffin as a single injection in the left hind foot pad. Rats were examined 3 times weekly and the volume of each paw was determined plethysmographically.Lesions which developed in 4 paws, tail, eye and ears were recorded at 4 weeks after injection of the adjuvant and graded from 1+ to 3+. Cell walls were prepared from Corynebacterium diphtheriae strain PW8, Nocardia asteroides No. 131, and Mycobacterium bovis strain BCG using the Sorval-Ribi cell fractionator or an ultrasonic oscillator. Crude cell walls obtained by fractional centrifugation were treated with trypsin, chymotrypsin and pronase and delipidated by repeated extractions with ether-ethyl alcohol (1:1), chloroform and chloroformmethyl alcohol (2:1).The "acid-treated cell wall" was prepared from cell wall of M. bovis strain BCG by the following procedure. The delipidated cell wall was treated with 0.1 N HCl solution at 60 C for 12 hr with stirring. After centrifugation, the residue was washed with water and then extracted with acetone and ether to remove the bound lipid. The HC1-treated cell wall was further treated by extraction with 5% trichloroacetic acid at 60 C for 24 hr. This preparation was spun and then washed...