Genetic Control of Immune Response to Protein Antigens

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Abstract
A high (H/p) and a low (L/p) responder line of mice have been produced by selective breeding for the character “quantitative antibody responsiveness” to BSA and RgG. These two Ag were administered at optimal immunizing doses and alternated at each generation in order to avoid the interference of maternally transmitted antibodies. H/p and L/p diverged progressively during the first seven generations of selective breeding, suggesting a polygenic regulation of the character investigated. The maximal interline separation (RT) was reached after seven consecutive generations of selective breeding (F7). The continuation of the selection until the F15 generation did not significantly modify the RT value of F7. At the maximal interline separation (F7 to F15) the titer of antibody measured in terms of passive hemagglutinins was about 250 times higher in H/p than in L/p. The decrease of phenotypic variance during the selective breeding shows that 76% of the phenotypic variance of the foundation population (F0) is due to genetic factors: VG, and that 24% is produced by environmental effects: VE. The heritability of the character (h2) measured by the linear regression between the selection differential (S) and the response to selection (R) during the first seven generations is 0.22 ± 0.06. A provisional estimation that needs to be confirmed by experiments under way indicated that the character investigated may be controlled by two or three independent loci.

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