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Kinetics and Specificity of Transfer of Immunoglobulin G and Serum Albumin across Rabbit Yolk Sac in Utero¹

University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute at Houston, Department of Biochemistry, and the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences, Houston, Texas

Abstract

The kinetics and specificity of yolk sac transfer of IgG and of serum albumin in vivo, from mother to fetus in the rabbit, were studied by uterine intraluminal administration of ¹²⁵I-IgG and ¹²⁵I-serum albumin (¹²⁵I-RSA).

Methodologic and biologic factors were investigated to assess their effects on the quality of experimental transfer data. The observed range in the data could not be ascribed to problems related to temperature or time of experimental manipulation nor to a failure to extract completely labeled protein from fetal tissue. Metabolic degradation of the labeled proteins was also ruled out as a cause for the observed variation in the data. Factors markedly influencing transfer data and requiring correction include: a) the failure to achieve a uniform distribution of administered protein among the fetuses in a horn, when material was injected through the fallopian tube and cervical canal of the uterine horn, and b) differences in the amounts of endogenous protein in the uterine horns of different rabbits and in the horns of a given rabbit.

The influence of the first two was minimized by modifying the surgical techniques so that we could study transfer of the separate fetuses. The problems due to the second factor were corrected by use of a "dilution factor."

The transfer reaction of IgG and of serum albumin was shown to follow zero order kinetics. Competition experiments indicated that independent recognition sites on the fetal yolk sac membrane are involved in the transport of each protein. When the observed transfer data were corrected for dilution by endogenous uterine IgG and serum albumin, a preference for the transfer of ¹²⁵I-RSA over ¹²⁵I-IgG was seen in most cases.

There is no evidence for a mandatory requirement for a carbohydrate moiety for transfer of protein in this model.

A generalized hypothesis is presented for the materno-fetal (or neonate) passive transfer of IgG, based on ontogenetic and morphologic similarities of the membranes involved in the transfer.

Footnotes

¹ This investigation was supported in part by Grants GB 6736 and GB 13650 from the National Science Foundation and was presented in part at the meeting of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, Atlantic City, New Jersey. (Fed. Proc., 30: 365 (abstract), 1971).

² To whom requests for reprints should be addressed.