The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vol 132, 440-447,
Copyright © 1970 by The Rockefeller University Press
TOLERANCE AND IMMUNITY TO MATERNALLY DERIVED INCOMPATIBLE IgG2a-GLOBULIN IN MICE
Noel L. Warner Ph.D.1 and
Leonore A. Herzenberg 1
1 From The Department of Genetics, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California 94305
Progeny mice were confronted with maternal
-globulin of a different allotype by either back-cross mating, intercross mating, or by foster nursing. In all cases, many mice subsequently produced alloantibodies directed against the incompatible maternal type of IgG2a-globulin.
In one series of experiments, immunologic tolerance to the maternally derived
-globulin was demonstrated to exist in the period before formation of spontaneous antibody. The state of tolerance was then lost, unless maintenance injections of foreign
-globulin were given.
These studies demonstrate in a natural situation that maternally derived foreign proteins can first induce a state of immunological tolerance which is followed, after disappearance of the antigen, by a state of immunity. As such, this parallels the experimental induction of tolerance to foreign proteins by neonatal injections.
Submitted on April 12, 1970