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The Immunologic Competence of Chickens' Skin¹

From The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Abstract

It has been shown that when grafts of adult chickens' skin are transplanted to the chorioallantoic membranes of 9-10-day-old chick embryos they heal in soundly, become vascularized and evoke a characteristic cellular response in the underlying extraembryonic mesenchymal tissue of their host. These grafts also bring about enlargement of, and certain lesions in, the hosts' spleens. It is argued that these changes are the result of an immunologic reaction on the part of certain cellular ingredients present in the skin grafts against the foreign cellular "transplantation" antigens of the embryonic hosts. Experiments involving the use of exsanguinated and perfused donors, and determinations of the minimal amount of whole blood required to produce lesions in the hosts' spleens, have shown that the immunologic competence of chickens's kin cannot simply be ascribed to the activity of certain leukocytic ingredients of the blood in its vessels, but must be regarded as residing mainly, if not entirely, in fixed cells of the skin which are almost certainly lymphocytes.

Footnotes

This work was supported by Grant C-3577 from the National Institutes of Health, United States Public Health Service.

² We are greatly indebted to Mr. G. Sawchuck for his invaluable technical assistance, to Dr. V. Defendi for assistance with the histologic studies and to Professor P. B. Medawar, F.R.S., of University College, London, for constructive criticism of the manuscript.