Inability of tolerant males to sire tolerant progeny

Abstract

Recent data of Gorczynski and Steele suggested that male mice made tolerant of an allogeneic strain by the neonatal injection of hybrid lymphomyeloid cells may, by a presumably genetic mechanism, pass on this operationally similar form of hyporesponsiveness to their progeny^1,2—the progeny have inherited an acquired characteristic. Their theory, proposed to account for the inheritance of an acquired characteristic, uses a RNA tumour virus that transfers to the spermatogenic germinal epithelium DNA coding for the gene products of the foreign alloantigens. This is possible because the tolerant mouse is chimaeric and contains small numbers of foreign lymphomyeloid cells. Thus, the virus transfers genetic information for transplantation antigens from the chimaeric foreign cells to the germinal epithelium of the host. The progeny of the tolerant male are themselves tolerant because they have received DNA coding for the foreign antigens from paternal sperm. The progeny are tolerant because foreign is now ‘self’. I have now repeated these experiments in a strain combination of rats, DA tolerant of PVG, and found no hyporesponsiveness to the PVG strain in the progeny of tolerant DA males.