The Nature of the “Partial” Tolerance Induced by Parity 2
Edward J. Breyere, Sumner O. Burhoe · JNCI Journal of the National Cancer Institute · 1963
Previous studies showed prolonged survival of DBA/2 skin grafts on BALB/c females parous by DBA/2 males, but none survived permanently. The present experiments revealed that this apparent partial maternal tolerance resulted from complete and permanent tolerance to some graft antigens, while reactivity to others remained either unchanged or partially suppressed. This partial tolerance was studied in F2 hybrid females of the BALB/c and DBA/2 strains. They were mated to either BALB/c or DBA/2 males, and after bearing 3 litters, each female received a skin graft from each parental strain. Virgin F2 females were similarly grafted. A low percentage of permanently surviving grafts was obtained with virgins and females parous by males unrelated to the graft. The percentage of permanently surviving grafts in these 2 groups combined was 2.2 (12/541). A genetic concordance between the graft and breeding sire increased this percentage to 24.7 (74/300). Thus strain-specific matings resulted in the induction of complete and permanent tolerance in females to the transplantation antigens which were determined by a minimum of approximately 8 of the 13 pairs of independently segregating histocompatibility loci that differ between these 2 strains. These results further demonstrate the specificity of this reaction and suggest that the mechanisms involved might be applied to the successful transplantation of allogeneic tissues and the biology of choriocarcinoma.