Immunity in embryos. Anaphylaxis in young chicks suggests a new explanation for some puzzling properties of embryos
✍ Scribed by van Alten, Pierson J. ;Schechtman, A. M.
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1963
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 801 KB
- Volume
- 153
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0022-104X
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✦ Synopsis
Up to the present time few studies have been conducted which elucidate the establishment and ontogeny of the immune response during embryonic development. This has been true, as Ebert and DeLanney ('60) point out, despite a great deal of preoccupation with immunobiological concepts generated by studies in homograft tolerance, immunological suppression, and graft versus host reaction. Most evidence indicates that embryonic and very young birds and mammals cannot synthesize antibodies. This type of protein synthesis is generally regarded as one of the last physiological differentiations of the developing organism. This conclusion is based on the absence of specific humoral antibodies following the introduction of antigen during embryonic stages of life. Further, it is supported by evidence that the embryo cannot produce gamma-globulin, although its serum may contain such globulins derived by transfer from the mother (Schechtman, '55).
The development of the immune mechanism in chick embryos appears to be a gradual process. Sherman ('19) found that complement appears in serum of embryonic chicks on the seventeenth day of incubation. Green and Lorincz ('56) noted that when mouse tumor cells are injected into 11-day chick embryos, the cells grow vigorously until about the seventeenth day when they begin to degenerate. Wolfe and Dilkes ('48) and later Buxton ('54) injected antigens into the chick immediately after hatching and detected circulating antibodies 11 days later. However, only 50% of the chicks were able to respond to antigenic stimuli (Wolfe and Dilkes, '48); the capacity for antibody for-