Maternal influence on responsiveness of multiparous mice to the antigenic characteristics of their male progeny

SUMMARY-To test the maternal influence on responsive-ness of multiparous mice to antigens controlled by the Y chromosome, the survival of lethally irradiated ova-transfer substrain males inoculated with syngeneic ma-ternal marrow was compared with the survival of similar groups from the strain of origin and the strain of the ances-tral foster mother. Multiparity may result in sensitization of the mother to the antigens of her male progeny; this is indicated by the reduced survival of lethally irradiated male recipients of maternal bone marrow. Either an in-crease or a decrease in responsiveness was transferred from the strain of the ancestral foster mother, depending on whether this strain was more or less responsive than the strain of origin of the ova-transfer substrain. The responsiveness of the ova·transfer substrains differed from both ancestral strains, even when these strains showed similar maternal responses to the antigens of their male progeny. Although sensitization through multi-parity was required to detect these differences in respon-siveness to these relatively weak antigens, the shift in responsiveness described in this test system was similar to that observed in other test systems involving a primary response toward histocompatibility-2 antigens.-J Natl