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SPECIFIC AND NON‐SPECIFIC COMPONENTS IN THE EFFECT OF HISTOCOMPATIBILITY ANTIGENS IN NEONATAL SKIN GRAFTS ON THE HOST'S IMMUNE RESPONSE CAPACITY
Author(s) -
Viklický V.,
Poláčková M.
Publication year - 1974
Publication title -
international journal of immunogenetics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.41
H-Index - 47
eISSN - 1744-313X
pISSN - 1744-3121
DOI - 10.1111/j.1744-313x.1974.tb00300.x
Subject(s) - immune system , histocompatibility , antigen , immunology , major histocompatibility complex , transplantation , biology , medicine , human leukocyte antigen
SUMMARY The‘tolerogenicity’of neonatal skin grafts, as reflected in their higher survival rate as well as in their capacity to confer this tendency upon simultaneous adult grafts, has been believed to be based on an immunologically specific feature of the neonatal alloantigens. The data presented in this study demonstrate in two weak histocompatibility systems (H‐9 and that presented by the male‐specific antigen, MSA) that there is also an important non‐specific component in the tolerogenic mechanism of neonatal skin allografts. The survival of adult skin allografts was followed in double‐grafted animals in which the neonatal graft was either a specific or non‐specific allograft or a syngeneic graft. Although the maximum increase in the survival rate of the adult grafts (in comparison to single‐grafted controls) was induced by antigenically specific neonatal grafts, significant effects were also induced by antigenically neutral (syngeneic) or antigenically non‐specific neonatal grafts. The immunologically nonspecific component in the effect of neonatal skin grafts could be traced back to their primarily high contents of proteoglycans and to their long‐lasting production of the latter; consequently, the neonatal graft which is protected by these substances against the concomitant round cell infiltration can secondarily provide some protection also to the adult allograft. This non‐specific protection may favour a stepwise establishment of a specific tolerance.