Common and individual features of the humoral immunity dysregulation of mice homozygous at the viable motheaten (mev) mutation.

The "viable motheaten" (mev) mutation in the C57BL/6 (B6) mouse causes in mev-homozygous B6 mice a rapidly progressing and fatal autoimmune syndrome, combined with a generalized immunodeficiency. Serological analyses of a large number of mev/mev individual mice revealed profound abnormalities of the levels of various spontaneously occurring, natural antibodies and of the levels and distribution of the different classes of immunoglobulins, some common to all mev/mev mice and some specific to individual mice. Although very high serum IgM levels (70X the normal B6 mouse serum level) and high anti-ssDNA titers are common features, the increases in the other immunoglobulin isotypes are not so marked (4.7X for IgG3, 2.7X for IgA, 1.6X for IgG1 and IgG2b, and even 0.6X for IgG2a), and the occurrence of other natural antibody specificities shows more individual variability.