Twenty-six patients with a pauciarticular arthritis have been studied clinically, radiologically and with histocompatibility typing. An increased frequency of HLA B27 was found (p = 1.87 x 10(-12)). Low back and buttock pain, Achilles tendinitis and dactylitis of the toes were more frequent in HLA-B27 positive patients. It is suggested that histocompatibility testing may be of some value in dia...

The T-cell receptor, which recognizes antigen plus a product of the major histocompatibility complex, has been postulated to drive T-cell maturation in the thymus by engaging major histocompatibility complex proteins expressed on thymic stromal cells. We tested this idea by injecting neonatal animals with an anti-receptor antibody, KJ16, that binds to about 20% of T cells and is capable of bloc...

Major histocompatibility complex class II expression deficiency is an autosomal recessive primary combined immunodeficiency. The prevalence of this deficiency is the highest in Mediterranean areas, especially North Africa. Early diagnosis is essential due to high mortality in the first 2 years of life. Prognosis is very poor when bone marrow transplantation cannot be performed. We report the ca...

Lactoperoxidase-catalyzed radioiodination of cell-surface proteins was used in the isolation of cell-surface immunoglobulin from thymus-derived thoracic duct lymphocytes activated to histocompatibility-2 antigens. Immunoglobulin was identified by specific precipitation with antiserum to mouse immunoglobulin. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of reduced and alkylated precipitates showed that th...

Studies on the survival of histocompatibility-Y antigen (H-Y)-incompatible and skin-specific antigen (Skn)-incompatible skin grafts in mice, as well as those concerned with the survival of cultured parathyroid allografts in rats, indicate that grafts provoke a strong immune response only if they include donor macrophages (or Langerhans cells) or if major histocompatibility complex-compatible ma...

The ability of an organism to distinguish self from nonself is determined by a cluster of genes located in the major histocompatibility complex. Recent advances in molecular genetics and cellular immunology have begun to elucidate the mechanisms responsible for immune response regulation. In this review article, the genetic organization of the murine and human major histocompatibility complexes...

This Perspectives article recounts the isolation and sequencing of the first human histocompatibility gene (HLA) in 1980-1981. At the time, general knowledge of the molecules of the immune system was already fairly extensive, and gene rearrangements in the immunoglobulin complex (discovered in 1976) had generated much excitement: HLA was quite obviously the next frontier. The author was able to...

A new polymorphic alloantigen system controlled by loci on the X-chromosome has been identified by using antisera from F1 hybrid mice differing in their X-chromosome. These alloantigens are associated with the X-chromosome. These alloantigens are associated with the X-linked immune response genes controlling the immune response to the so-called "thymus independent antigens" such as type III pne...

The disparity index is an expression of histocompatibility difference between two siblings with identical human leukocyte antigen (HL-A) type who are nonreactive in mixed leukocyte culture (MLC) test. This index is derived from a third-party MLC test. The disparity index was found to be correlated with the severity of graft-versus-host reaction in bone marrow transplantation between HL-A-identi...