The influence of histocompatibility and antithymocyte serum on the ability of alloantigenic pretreatment to prolong the survival of mouse skin grafts.
Test skin allografts enjoy prolonged survival when alloantigenic pretreatment (implants of small fragments of liver or kidney on the host's kidney cortex) is separated from test grafting by 9 days and donor and host strains differ only at the relatively weak H-3 + H-13 histocompatibility barrier (Baldwin and Cohen 1971, 1974). However, test skin grafts are rejected in an accelerated fashion when this protocol is followed but the donor strains differ at stronger non-H-2 barriers. In 2 such strain combinations in which control first-set grafts are rejected acutely, varying the implant-to-test graft interval, using F-1 mice as implant donors, or varying the sex of the donors and hosts, all failed to prolong test graft SURVIVAL. However, survival of some test grafts was significantly greater following a combined host treatment of alloimplanatation and ATS than it was following either procedure alone. This synergism suggests that across stronger H-barriers, alloantigenic pretreatment does elicit an immunosuppressive component whose effective presence is normally masked by thymus-dependent cell-mediated immunity.
D000818:Animals; D000961:Antilymphocyte Serum; D002470:Cell Survival / Q000187:drug effects; D006084:Graft Rejection / Q000187:drug effects; D006649:Histocompatibility Antigens; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents / Q000494:pharmacology; D051379:Mice; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C / Q000276:immunology; D008809:Mice, Inbred C3H / Q000276:immunology; D008808:Mice, Inbred CBA / Q000276:immunology; D008811:Mice, Inbred DBA / Q000276:immunology; D016038:Skin Transplantation; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology*; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous
D000961:Antilymphocyte Serum; D006649:Histocompatibility Antigens; D007166:Immunosuppressive Agents