Production of Organ-Specific Antibodies following an Induction of Tolerance to Antigens of Heterologous Organs

Abstract

ONE of the limiting factors in the study of organ-specific antigens is the existence in tissue cells of antigenic components that are either common to all organs of the same organism, that is, determined by its genetic constitution, or shared with one or a few other organs. These constituents are usually more strongly antigenic than those which are strictly organ-specific¹. Ordinary immunological methods of producing anti-organ sera by hetero-immunization with organ extracts are therefore not sensitive enough to elicit antibody response against the minor, but strictly organ-specific, antigens. The recent development of methods for producing immunological tolerance² seems to open up new possibilities of differentiating between these two types of antigens. It has been shown that the introduction of certain antigens at the fœtal² or neonatal³ stages renders the animals tolerant to these antigens. We have attempted to adapt these methods of producing acquired tolerance to elicit a state of non-responsiveness in rabbits to those antigens which one organ of a mouse shares with another. It was expected that rabbits in which tolerance had been produced to antigens of organ A, when later immunized by extracts of organ B of the same genotype, would produce antibodies only against B-specific antigens, that is, would not respond to the antigens which organ B shares with organ A.