A correlation between the strength of histocompatibility antigens and their efficacy as antigenic competitors to sheep red cells (SRC) has been found in conditions in which normal spleen cell populations were grafted to irradiated antigenic hosts and later challenged with SRC. Thus, competition took place between graft-versus-host reactivity and reactivity to SRC. The former was also evaluated by spleen assays, the latter by Jerne's hemolytic plaque technique. The seemingly inferior competitiveness of weak antigens, such as the Y-chromosome antigen, could be heightened to the level of strong H-2 antigens by pre-immunization of the donor. The response to SRC could be obliterated even in cell populations which were sensitized to SRC prior to the grafting. The time which the graft cells needed to be exposed to the host antigens before they would no longer react to SRC was certainly more than 3 days. By the 7th day competition was maximally expressed. The findings are discussed in relation to different views on the cellular basis of antigen recognition. It is concluded that these findings are difficult to reconcile with a random distribution of clonal reactivity. However, they are in good agreement with the previously formulated concept that antigenic strength is a function of the numbers of cells which, in the normal cell population, have the property of recognizing the corresponding antigen.
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Lawerence et al. (1967) studied this question.