The inheritance of susceptibility to implants of splenic tissue in mice. 1. Japanese waltzing mice,albinos,and their F 1 generation hybrids

The use of the terms “auto,”“homio,” and“hetero” transplantation has been general and of great value in the long series of experiments which have dealt with the transplantation of normal and of neoplastic tissues in vertebrates.

Following a number of experiments in this field, covering a wide range of material, it has become generally recognized by biological investigators that the closer the genetic relationship between the host and the donor of the graft tissue, the greater is the likelihood of persistent and progressive growth of an implant of tissue from one to the other.

Similary it has been found that in the ordinary“laboratory” races of mammals, inbreeding has not been intensive enough to have produced a close degree of genetic resemblance between individuals within the race. IVitliout this resemblance the continued growth of tissue transplants made from one animal to another is impossible. When close relatives such as parent and offspring or litter nates are picked for this interchange of implants, there is, as Loeb and others have pointed out, more chance of persistence of the implants than when unrelated animals are used. Loeb 1 has proposed the term“syngenesio-plastic transplantation” for experiments involving the closc relatives referred to.

When, however, closely inbred races of known genetic constitution are used, results are obtained Which show that the distinctions between“homio,”“syngenesio,” and “auto” transplantations are only relative and may delibrately broken down by picking animals of certain definite genetic constitutions for experirnentation.

Thus in animals of a closely inbred and genetically homogeneous strain of Japanese waltzing mice [already described in connection with experiments on the inheritance of susceptibility to transplanted tumors 2 ], the general reactions of an individual to subcutancous transplants of bit of its own spleen (autotransplants), or to bits of the spleen of another Japarlesc waltzing mouse of the same inbred race (honziotransplanlts) were the same.