Genetic and cellular requirements for primary antibody immune response to Thy-1 antigens in mice.

An effective anti-Thy-1 response requires at least three conditions to be simultaneously fulfilled--1) The responder has to share an H-2 haplotype, or at least K and D alleles, with the donor of the Thy-1 disparate thymocytes, 2) The responder has to differ from the donor by some non-H-2 cell-surface antigens, and 3) The responder has to possess functionally capable T cells. All these requirements are consistent with the hypothesis that Thy-1 antigens and the non-H-2 antigen(s), the latter serving as carrier, form a complex that is viewed as a variant of self and then recognized in the context of the H-2 molecules by the responder's T cells. An attractive feature of the proposed hypothesis is that it could be applicable to a variety of cell-surface and also exogenous antigens.