Demonstration of an Early Host-Graft Incompatibility Reaction In Radiation Chimeras with the Jerne Plaque Technique ∗

Summary

The Jerne plaque technique was used to demonstrate the presence of an early immunologic reaction between host and donor tissues in lethally irradiated mice treated with rat or hamster bone marrow. Evidence for both host and graft activity was obtained from spleen cells of mice that had been treated with hamster bone marrow. The responses obtained were of low magnitude and variable, and were evident primarily through the first 6 days post-treatment. A cause and effect relationship of this early immune reaction to the etiology of secondary disease in foreign marrow radiation chimeras is suggested.