Analysis of neonatally induced tolerance of H-2 alloantigens. I. Adoptive transfer indicates that tolerance of class I and class II antigens is maintained by distinct mechanisms.
Neonatal inoculation of mice with semi-allogeneic lymphohematopoietic cells produces a state of highly specific allograft tolerance. Phenotypically, by both in vivo and in vitro criteria, antigen-reactive cells specific for the tolerated antigens appear to be clonally deleted from intact, tolerant mice. However, a series of adoptive transfer experiments using mice rendered tolerant of various H-2 alloantigens revealed that tolerance of Ia (class II) antigens is maintained by a different mechanism than tolerance of K/D (class I) antigens. Long-term acceptance of Ia-disparate grafts by recipients of Ia-tolerant lymphoid cells suggested that an active process (rather than passive clonal deletion) mediates and maintains this type of tolerance. No comparable success was achieved when tolerance of isolated class I or entire H-2 haplotype disparity was examined, suggesting that clonal deletion might be operative in these combinations. Modest prolongation of skin-graft survival was observed in adoptive transfer recipients of lymphoid cells from donors tolerant of I-JECSD disparity. These data are compatible with the hypothesis that the central I region (JE) promotes tolerance induction to associated strong IA- and D-region alloantigens by activating a suppression mechanism.
D000818:Animals; D000831:Animals, Newborn; D006183:H-2 Antigens / Q000145:classification / Q000276:immunology*; D007108:Immune Tolerance; D007116:Immunization, Passive; D051379:Mice; D008805:Mice, Inbred A; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D011828:Radiation Chimera
D006183:H-2 Antigens