Relationship of B blood group locus to skin allograft in chickens

Skin grafts were exchanged among 21 genotypic pairs of B blood group locus in the non-inbred chicks of White Leghorn at 5-7 days of age. The mean percentages of B locus compatible pairs were 94.7, 84.2 and 56.8 at the 11th, 15th and 19th days after grafting, respectively. These percentages of survival grafts were significantly higher than those of incompatible pairs. The effects of three B alleles were investigated but the differences of effects of them were not found in this experiment. Two of the prolonged survival grafts survived for 35 days after grafting and all of the incompatible grafts were rejected the 20th day after grafting. The results of skin graft provided evidence that the B blood group locus was a histocompatibility locus or closely linked to such a locus.