Specific Transplantation Tolerance

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Abstract
IN 1945 Ray Owen reported a remarkable finding.1 He had examined the blood groups of freemartin cattle, which are fraternal twins born from a common placenta, and concluded that their blood groups could only be explained if hematopoietic cells had been exchanged between the sibling cattle in utero and if the progeny of these cells had persisted into adult life. The purpose of this study was to explain the unusual blood types of these cattle, but its implications for transplantation immunology are clear: Exposure of the immune system to foreign transplantation antigens during ontogeny is sufficient to permit the development . . .