New Possibilities for Organ Allografting in the Mouse

Abstract

It is now firmly established that the most important factor governing the long-term survival of living cells transferred from one mammal to another of the same species is the degree of immunogenetic disparity between donor and recipient. Thus, the existence of highly inbred strains, of which all of the members are isohistogenic with one another, has been a weapon of major proportions to the transplantation biologist. Only by the use of inbred strains of animals is it possible to construct experiments in which donors and recipients differ from one another by precisely the same degree in repeated experiments. Inbred strains of several species have now been developed, including the mouse, rat, hamster, guinea pig, and rabbit (Billingham and Silvers, 1959) and efforts are well advanced to produce increasingly inbred dogs. Nevertheless, the process or characterization of inbred strains is much more advanced in the mouse than in any other species as a consequence of much careful work by many investigators over the last four decades. For the work which we will report in brief in this chapter, we have depended most heavily upon the achievements of Dr. George Snell and his colleagues who have developed highly inbred strains of mice which differ from one another by no more than single antigenic specificities of varying strength, termed ‘coisogenic’ strains. These strains of mice, especially those which are coisogenic with one another, have therefore offered opportunities for designing experiments in transplantation which are not possible in any other species. It is not surprising that the mouse has been used very extensively as an experimental animal in cellular immunology, and many tissues of various types have been grafted between mice by free transfer of bits of tissue which must survive on the basis of establishing a blood supply from small vessels in the graft bed.