Genetic control of immune response to sperm whale myoglobin in mice. I. T lymphocyte proliferative response under H-2-linked Ir gene control

Studies on the genetic control of immune response to sperm whale myoglobin were initiated. As demonstrated in this paper, the T lymphocyte proliferative response to whale myoglobin is under H-2-linked Ir gene control. Mice of H-2(d), H-2(f), and H-2(s) haplotypes were high responders to the myoglobin, whereas haplotypes H-2 ^b, H-2(k), H-2(p), H-2(q), H-2(r) were low responders. The Ir gene(s) was localized between H-2K and H2D regions, since the recombinant strain A.TL(K(s)I(k)S(k)D(d)) was a low responder and A.TH (K(s)I(s)S(s)D(d)) was a high responder. Further studies with recombinant strains revealed that the expression of the high-responder I-A(d) or I-A(s) alleles was sufficient to give a good response, since strains D2.GD (d d b b b b b b) and B.10HTT (s s s s k k k d) were high responders. The expression of the I-C(d) allele in strains B10.A (k k k k k d d d) and B.10.A(5R)(b b b k k d d d) also gave high response, and thus suggested a second Ir gene, derived from the H-2(d) haplotype. The finding that expression of the I-C(s) allele in B10.S(8R) (k k ? ? s s s s) did not result in high response suggests the lack of the second Ir gene in the high-responder H-2(s) haplotype.