GN 204- Final Exam Guide - Comprehensive Notes for the exam ( 95 pages long!)
Document Summary
The understanding of the factors controlling rejection became possible after inbred strains of mice became available. Inbred strains are obtained after 20 or more generations of brother/sister mating and for all purposes are constituted by genetically identical animals. The use of these animals made it possible to prove that graft rejection is under genetic control, and that is subject to general immunological rules, i. e. , specificity and memory. The genetic control of graft rejection became obvious in experiments in which skin was transplanted among laboratory animals of the same or different inbred strains. When skin was grafted among animals of the same inbred strain, no rejection was observed. When grafting involved mice of different strains, the recipient animals rejected the graft, but the speed and intensity of the rejection reaction were clearly dependent on the degree of genetic relatedness between the strains used in the experiment.
