Epitope-Specific Regulation of the Antibody Response against Alpha-Lactalbumins in the Mouse

Abstract

The immune responsiveness to human and bovine α-lactalbumin (HuALA and BoALA) was found to be under the control of immune response (Ir) gene(s) linked to the major histocompatibility complex. H-2^k mice responded to both HuALA and BoALA, whereas H-2^{d, s, and f} mice respond only to HuALA; H-2^b mice were nonresponders to both HuALA and BoALA. A survey with B10.A recombinant mouse strains .enabled us to map the Ir gene in the I-A subregion. The responsiveness was shown to be dominant in F₁ mice. The coimmunization of BoALA and HuALA resulted in the suppressed secondary antibody response to HuALA in B10.S (H-2^S) and BALB/c (H-2^d) but not in C3H (H-2^k) suggesting that the low responsiveness against HuALA in these strains is due to an active suppression. The transfer of splenic T cells of B10.S mice primed with BoALA into syngeneic animals suppressed the response to HuALA. T cells specific for a particular epitope present on BoALA appeared to suppress the immune response to other epitopes on HuALA. Thus, the presence of epitope-specific suppressor T cells seems to account for this Ir-gene-controlled low responsiveness to ALA in H-2^smice.

Hock immunization: A humane alternative to mouse footpad injections

“…In two cases, namely, in the response of B10.BR mice to hALAC, and in the response of BALB/c mice to OVA, the response in hock-immunized mice was significantly stronger compared to footpad-immunized mice while in one case, namely, in the response of A/J mice to OVA, the response of footpad-immunized mice was significantly stronger compared to hock-immunized mice. Overall, the pattern of antibody response to both OVA and hALAC in the different mouse strains also correlated well with those reported in the published literature (Horiuchi et al, 1990;Takeyoshi and Inoue, 1992). In these earlier studies too antibody responses of C57Bl/6 mice to OVA and hALAC were comparatively lower.…”

“…The pattern of antigen-specific antibody responses among the tested strains conformed to published reports. For example, it has been previously shown that B10.BR mice make strong anti-hALAC IgG antibody responses, followed by B10.D2 mice and BALB/c mice, and that C57Bl/6 mice make the weakest responses (Horiuchi et al, 1990). We observed the same patterns (Fig.…”