Nature 290, 513 - 514 (09 April 1981); doi:10.1038/290513a0

Immune reactivity of progeny of tetraparental male mice

Anne McLaren^*, Phillip Chandler^†, Mia Buehr^*, Walter Fierz^† & Elizabeth Simpson^†

^*MRC Mammalian Development Unit, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK
^†Transplantation Biology Section, Clinical Research Centre, Watford Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 3UJ, UK

Steele and Gorczynski¹ have recently suggested that inbred male mice rendered tolerant at birth to the alloantigens of an H−2 plus non-H−2 incompatible inbred strain can transmit this tolerance or hyporeactivity, as measured in a primary anti-H−2 cytotoxic T-cell test in vitro, to their progeny, born of normally reactive females syngeneic with the males. As a corollary, it might be expected that the progeny of tetraparental males which are tolerant because from earliest fetal development they are chimaeric with respect to all tissues, including haematopoietic cells and germ cells, might in turn be tolerant to the other set of paternal alloantigens. We have now found, on the contrary, that inbred progeny of one component of a tetraparental male showed heightened responsiveness to the other paternal alloantigens.

References

1.	Gorczynski, R. M. & Steele, E. J. Proc. natn. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 77, 2871 (1980). | ChemPort |
2.	McLaren, A. in Mammalian Chimeras (Cambridge Universy Press, 1976).
3.	Matsunaga, T., Simpson, E. & Meo, T. Transplantation 30, 34−39 (1980). | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |
4.	Chandler, P. Matsunaga, T., Benjamin, D. & Simpson, E. J. immun. Meth. 31, 341 (1979). | Article | ISI | ChemPort |
5.	Brent, L. et al. Nature 290 508−512 (1981). | Article | PubMed | ISI | ChemPort |