Restriction in adoptive transfer of resistance to Listeria monocytogenes. I. Influence of non-H-2 loci.

In vivo adoptive transfer of T-cell-mediated immunity to the facultative intracellular bacterium Listeria monocytogenes is restricted, not only by the H-2 haplotype of the mice, but also by incompatibilities at non-H-2 loci. Thus, transfer between H-2 identical strains of mice with different background genes was reproducibly and significantly less efficient than transfer between completely syngeneic mice, although the restriction was less marked than that across the H-2 barrier. Restriction also occurred when parental cells were injected into semisyngeneic F1 hybrids and when cells from F1 hybrids were injected into parental strains. Using congenic strains of mice differing only at defined minor histocompatibility antigens, it was found that, of those loci available for study, antigens arising from the H-4 and H-8 loci strongly restricted transfer, whereas those specified by H-1, H-3, and H-7 did not.