Marek's disease: effects of B histocompatibility alloalleles in resistant and susceptible chicken lines.

Lines of chickens selected from a common ancestral population for either resistance or susceptibility to Marek's disease developed contrasting frequencies of particular B alloalleles. Comparison of inoculated sibs in backcross-families revealed that the B alloalleles characterizing the two lines accounted for an eightfold difference in tumor incidence. This genetic difference in tumorigenesis associated with the alloalleles of the major histocompatibility complex is probably expressed through the cell-mediated immune system.