Association of the H-Y male antigen with beta2-microglobulin on human lymphoid and differentiated mouse teratocarcinoma cell lines

The expression of the H-Y antigen has been tested on several human lymphoid lines and mouse teratocarcinoma cell lines during differentiation. The human male lymphoid cell line Raji is a very useful target for studies of the H-Y antigen by lymphocytotoxicity test with rat anti-H-Y sera. With a few exceptions, all cells carrying the Y chromosome were H-Y positive. One of the exceptions is the human Daudi cell line which, besides lacking H-Y antigen, also lacks beta2-microglobulin. We have studied a possible association between the H-Y antigen, beta2-microglobulin, and HLA antigen with redistribution experiments. The results strongly suggest that H-Y antigen is not associated with HLA antigens but with beta2-microglobulin.