Does the amount of thyroglobulin antigen influence the severity and genetic control of murine autoimmune thyroiditis?

The development of murine autoimmune thyroiditis, induced by immunization with thyroglobulin emulsified in complete Freund's adjuvant, is controlled by the H-2 region; there are high and low responder strains of mice with respect to their response to immunization with thyroglobulin. Various amounts of thyroglobulin (5-500 micrograms) were used to immunize low (DBA/2 and C57BL/6) and high (AKR) responder mice to observe the possible role of different thyroglobulin epitopes (or of their density) on the development of thyroiditis, to determine whether the H-2 control is observed for various amounts of antigen, and to find the optimum amount of thyroglobulin which best shows the genetic control of this disease. The H-2 control of autoimmune murine thyroiditis was clearly observed regardless of the dose of antigen used for immunization. Small amounts of thyroglobulin elicited low titers of thyroglobulin antibodies in low responders and higher titers in high responders. In all strains tested, the highest amount of thyroglobulin (500 micrograms) induced less thyroid damage than an intermediate (100 or 200 micrograms) amount of this antigen.