Immune reactivity of progeny of tetraparental male mice

Steele and Gorczynski have recently suggested that inbred male mice rendered tolerant at birth to the alloantigens of an H-2 plus non-H-2 incompatible inbred strain can transmit this tolerance or hyporeactivity, as measured in a primary anti-H-2 cytotoxic T-cell test in vitro, to their progeny, born of normally reactive females syngeneic with the males. As a corollary, it might be expected that the progeny of tetraparental males which are tolerant because from earliest fetal development they are chimaeric with respect to all tissues, including haematopoietic cells and germ cells, might in turn be tolerant to the other set of paternal alloantigens. We have now found, on the contrary, that inbred progeny of one component of a tetraparental male showed heightened responsiveness to the other paternal alloantigens.