Strain-dependent association between immune function and paw preference in mice.
The relationship between immune function and the preferred direction of behavioral asymmetry was examined in several mouse strains. Mixed leukocyte reaction, natural killer cell activity, cytotoxic T lymphocyte response and lymphoproliferation in response to mitogens were investigated in animals with left or right paw preference. From the 7 strains and substrains examined, it appeared that differences in immune function between left and right pawed mice, when present, vary in directionality. Thus, in C3H/HeJ and 129/J, left pawed mice had higher immune responses than right pawed mice, whereas in C3H/HeNCr MTV- and BALB/cJ animals, the reverse was found. In C3H/HeNCr MTV+, C57BL/6J and Collin's heterogenous control population for the high/low asymmetry lines, no differences between animals with left or right paw preference were found. The statistical significance of these differences were not uniform for all the immune parameters studied. These data indicate that the association between immune function and preference for using the left versus right paw is a strain-dependent phenomenon and may suggest that the inconsistent evidence for an association between immune deficiency and left-handedness could be due to genetic heterogeneity among subpopulations.
Fride
E
E
Laboratory of Neuroscience, NIDDK, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892.
Collins
R L
RL
Skolnick
P
P
Arora
P K
PK
D000818:Animals; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology; D002455:Cell Division / Q000187:drug effects; D003601:Cytotoxicity Tests, Immunologic; D007839:Functional Laterality / Q000502:physiology*; D007109:Immunity / Q000502:physiology*; D007959:Lymphocyte Culture Test, Mixed; D051379:Mice; D008815:Mice, Inbred Strains; D008934:Mitogens / Q000494:pharmacology; D013045:Species Specificity; D013154:Spleen / Q000166:cytology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology
D008934:Mitogens