The Journal of Experimental Medicine, Vol 137, 1097-1102,
Copyright © 1973 by The Rockefeller University Press
DEFICIT OF SPECIFIC THYMUS-DEPENDENT LYMPHOCYTES IN TRANSPLANTATION TOLERANCE IN THE RAT
William L. Elkins 1
1 From the Immunobiology Research Unit, Department of Pathology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104
Recovery from adoptively terminated transplantation tolerance was studied by utilizing formerly tolerant rats as donors of lymphocytes in local renal graft-vs.-host reactions (GVHR). The origin of the proliferating lymphocytes in the GVHR was studied by means of sex chromosome markers. A deficit of specifically reactive lymphocytes, while tolerance was in effect, was revealed by the continuing absence of autochthonous specifically reactive cells after tolerance was abolished in adult thymectomized chimeras. The findings are consistent with Burnet's hypothesis of the cellular basis of tolerance, but apply only to the T lymphocytes of donor origin which normally proliferate in these GVHR.
Submitted on December 3, 1972