On the absence of isoagglutinins in mice

Abstract

The number of units of inheritance, or genes that are known in mice, is already so much in excess of the number of those known in any other mammal that there is offered a strong inducement to make intensive studies in order to increase the number of genes to the point where the deeper study of the genetic mechanism of a mammal may be undertaken. A possible field for the search for new characters was suggested by the claims of Von Dungern and Hirschfeld, Learmonth, and Ottenberg that blood groups in man depend in their inheritance upon simple Mendelian factors. Besides being of interest from the standpoint of mouse genetics and of the technique of experimental transplantations, the discovery of blood groups in mice would lead to a genetic investigation that could provide an experimental basis for the study of the inheritance of blood groups in man. The tests made upon rabbits and steer by Ottenberg and Friedman are said to reveal the presence of blood groups in these animals. On the other hand, other investigators (Hektoen, Ingebristen, Fischbein, and Rohdenburg), using a variety of animals (cats, dogs, sheep, swine, cattle, horses, rabbits, guinea-pigs, rats, and frogs), have failed to find any evidence of blood groups. In certain cases agglutinations were found, but these did not appear to be grouped. Such negative results did not promise well for the discovery of blood groups in mice, but the availability of a greater number of different races than had been used in testing the other animals favored the chanlces of a positive result. The following races of mice were used in the present experiments: (1) Japanese Waltzers (Lambert strain), which originated from a single pair of mice isolated in 1906 and intensively inbred ever since; (2) ten lines inbred three or four generations from Lathrop stock by Dr. C. C.