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Antibody Responses to Two Synthetic Polypeptides: The Role of the Thymic Epithelial Reticulum¹

From the Life Sciences Division, Stanford Research Institute, Menlo Park, California 94025 and Stanford School of Medicine, Palo Alto, California 94305

Abstract

Thymectomized, lethally irradiated mice that normally respond well to the synthetic polypeptide (T, G)-A—L but poorly to (H,G)-A—L were protected with liver cells and a thymus graft from fetal mice of a strain that responds to these antigens in the opposite manner. All chimeras failed to respond to (T,G)-A—L, but 24 of 27 responded well to (H,G)-A—L. Moreover, when thymectomized mice that respond well to (H,G)-A—L but poorly to (T,G)-A—L were lethally irradiated, protected with syngeneic fetal liver cells, and grafted with thymus from newborn mice of a strain that normally responds well to both antigens, the resultant chimeras responded to (H,G)-A—L only. These data indicate that the control of the antibody response to these two antigens is expressed through a cell type(s) present in the liver during embryonic life. while it is apparent that the presence of the thymus was essential for a detectable response to these synthetic polypeptides, the phenotypic expression of the response was independent of the genotype of the thymic epithelial reticulum.

Footnotes

¹ From the Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory, San Francisco, California (disestablished in November 1969). This work was supported in part by Office of Naval Research, Contract N00014-70-C-0068 and by National Institutes of Health Grant AI-07757.