Immunodeficiency in the chicken. II. Production of monomeric IgM following testosterone treatment or infection with Gumboro disease.

Chickens were treated at an early embryonal age with testosterone propionate or infected neonatally with the virus producing Gumboro disease. Their sera were subsequently fractionated by Sephadex G-200 chromatography, and showed a complete deficiency of IgG and the presence of IgM which was eluted with the 7S protein fraction. Purified and 125-I-labelled monomeric IgM was examined by SDS-acrylamide gel electrophoresis and found to contain both mu and light chains, together with a chain of intermediary size, which was absent from the patterns of 19S IgM or IgG.