Sundick R S, Wick G
Clin Exp Immunol. 1974 Sep;18(1):127-39.
The Obese strain (OS) of chickens spontaneously develops autoimmune thyroiditis several weeks after hatching, characterized by severe lymphoid infiltration and circulating thyroglobulin antibody. Sundick & Wick (1974) found that the thyroid glands of OS embryos and newly hatched chicks actually incorporated more I than normal controls when the parents of both groups were fed a Protamone-supplemented diet. Since this material—an iodinated casein containing thyro-active substances—drastically reduced thyroidal uptake of I, several experiments were designed to compare OS and normal chicks free from these effects. In the first experiment the dietary supplementation of OS and normal hens were changed from Protamone to pure thyroxine and triiodothyronine. Their eggs were collected daily and incubated. The hatched chicks were tested for 20-hr I uptake and it was determined that 11–18 days after the food switch, the inhibition of uptake by Protamone was reversed, and the newly hatched OS chicks still had a significantly increased 20-hr I uptake when compared to the normal controls. Comparison of the offspring of a special flock of OS hens that lays without hormonal supplementation, with the parental Cornell C strain from which the OS is derived, similarly revealed a higher 20-hr I uptake by the OS (<0·005). The increased thyroidal uptake of OS was apparent as early as 4 hr after I administration and seemed to be independent of slight variations in the amount of I available to the chicks, and also seemed to be independent of maternally derived thyroglobulin antibody vertically transferred into OS chicks. These results suggest that an abnormality of the OS thyroid gland might be a prerequisite for the spontaneously occurring autoimmune thyroiditis in this strain.
肥胖型品系（OS）鸡在孵化后数周会自发患上自身免疫性甲状腺炎，其特征为严重的淋巴细胞浸润和循环甲状腺球蛋白抗体。桑迪克和威克（1974年）发现，当两组鸡的亲本都喂食添加了Protamone的饲料时，OS胚胎和新孵出雏鸡的甲状腺实际摄取的碘比正常对照组更多。由于这种物质——一种含有甲状腺活性物质的碘化酪蛋白——能大幅降低甲状腺对碘的摄取，因此设计了几个实验来比较不受这些影响的OS雏鸡和正常雏鸡。在第一个实验中，将OS母鸡和正常母鸡的饲料补充剂从Protamone换成了纯甲状腺素和三碘甲状腺原氨酸。每天收集它们的蛋并进行孵化。对孵出的雏鸡进行20小时碘摄取测试，结果发现，在更换饲料11 - 18天后，Protamone对摄取的抑制作用得到逆转，与正常对照组相比，新孵出的OS雏鸡的20小时碘摄取量仍然显著增加。将一群不添加激素产蛋的特殊OS母鸡的后代，与OS品系所源自的亲本康奈尔C品系进行比较，同样发现OS雏鸡的20小时碘摄取量更高（<0.005）。OS雏鸡甲状腺摄取量的增加在给予碘后4小时就很明显，似乎与雏鸡可获得的碘量的微小变化无关，也似乎与垂直传递给OS雏鸡的母源性甲状腺球蛋白抗体无关。这些结果表明，OS甲状腺的异常可能是该品系自发发生自身免疫性甲状腺炎的一个先决条件。
