The establishment of tolerance in adult anaemic mice of the W-series treated with anti-lymphocytic serum and allogeneic haemopoietic cells.

The genetically determined macrocytic anaemia of adult WvWv mice was cured by treatment with allogeneic (CBA) haemopoietic cells following 7 days immunosuppression with antilymphocytic serum (ALS). The immunological status of these mice was studied by following the fate of two skin grafts—one derived from the same allogeneic donor as the haemopoietic cells (CBA), and the other (A strain) completely unrelated to both the host and the haemopoietic cells. The A strain grafts were rejected while the CBA strain grafts were never rejected. It was concluded that the mice had become specifically tolerant to the CBA genotype. Following studies with chromosome markers, it was found that this tolerance was associated with a high degree of cellular chimaerism.