Transplantation immunity in the isologous mouse radiation chimaera.

The survival of skin homo- and heterografts on isologous CBA mouse chimaeras has been investigated. Homografts usually persist for considerably longer than on normal unirradiated mice. Immunization of the host against the appropriate foreign antigens before irradiation neither reduces nor increases the duration of this persistence. When an irradiated non-immune host is restored with bone marrow from an immunized donor, a measure of immunity is transferred. If adult spleen cells from normal or immunized donors are added to the restorative inoculum, strongly antigenic foreign skins are shed with something like normal rapidity, but weakly antigenic skins may be retained for 100 days or more, and even indefinitely. Heterografts do not enjoy a span of survival comparable with that of homografts. These findings are discussed, and it is concluded that two factors are of importance in the prolongation of graft survival: (1) A weakening of the mechanism by which antigens are recognized as foreign, (2) an overall central depression of the immune response.