Medical genetics / edited by Victor A. McKusick and Robert Claiborne.

Date:
[1973]
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Credit: Medical genetics / edited by Victor A. McKusick and Robert Claiborne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    McDEVITT ferent rabbit lines, and indeed some lines were found to give consistently good responses, others consistently poor ones. This suggested that these responses might be under genetic control. Genetic studies were attempt¬ ed with the rabbits, but because they were not inbred we were confronted with a multiplicity of segregating genes and were unable to relate the immunologic differences to a specific pattern of inheritance. It was logical. therefore, to turn to inbred animal strains; mice were chosen because of the availability of a large number of such strains developed over many dec¬ ades by mouse geneticists. In our initial experiments we tested (T,G)-A-L responses in cba mice and in generation animals from СВАХ C57 matings. The cba ani¬ mals turned out to have a very low antibody response, the animals a high response. C57's were tested next and they were very high responders to (T,G)-A-L. This suggested that a single gene governed response quan¬ titatively and that the gene for high response was dominant; the свах C57 (Fj^) animals showed responses much closer to the C57 than to the с в A. In this respect the mice differed from the Benacerraf guinea pigs, in which response was 100% or zero. At this time we were aware of Ben¬ acerraf s observations with p l l and Poly-D, L-Ala Poly-D, L-Ala Histidine -o с □ о CQ С cu 100 75 CBA C57 F-î/CBA Fi/C.57 = 50 с < с ш и 25 Structures of simple synthetic antigens, (T,G)-A—L and (H,G)- A—L are diagrammed. Both have poly-L-lysine backbones with side chains of nonantigenic poly-D,L-alanine. Antigenicity de¬ pends on addition of either tyrosine and glutamic acid (T,G) or histidine and glutamic acid (H,G). Graphs show genetically de¬ termined difference in immune responses of two inbred strains to (T,G)-A—L: C57 mice are high responders, CBA low. Breed¬ ing studies show that the gene for high response expresses domi¬ nance. Although the data for (H,G)-A—L response are not given here, the situation was reversed, with CBA high and C57 low. 172