George Snell's First Foray Into the Unexplored Territory of the Major Histocompatibility Complex
2001; Oxford University Press; Volume: 159; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1093/genetics/159.2.435
ISSN1943-2631
Autores Tópico(s)Genetics, Bioinformatics, and Biomedical Research
ResumoT HE expression "x number years ago" is a moving Jack H. Stimpfling was still teaching bacteriology to nurs- ing students at the University of Colorado in Boulder; target.Right now it is 50 years ago, but next year it will be more than 50 and a year later more again.he would not team up with Snell at Bar Harbor until 6 years later.D. Bernard Amos was completing his medical Historians avoid this relativity by agreeing on a date that serves as a fixed point in the ceaseless flow of time.Year studies in London and was 1 year away from joining Gorer at the Department of Pathology, Guy's Hospital in 0 divides the recent past into B.C. and A.D., whereas London, to search for intra-H2 recombinants.Gustavo the year 1950 sets the present apart from the time "be-Hoecker in Santiago, Chile, was attempting to develop fore the present," B.P. In both instances, "before" trails an immunological means of protecting mice against off into the mists of antiquity.the growth of transplanted syngeneic leukemias; 1 year Curiously, 1950 can also be taken as a dividing point later, however, he and his wife Olga Pizarro were to in the history of the major histocompatibility complex travel to London to work with Gorer on the tissue distri-(Mhc), separating the "before" from the "present" times, bution of H2 antigens, and then to Bar Harbor to anafor it was in the first year of the present era that George lyze H2 determinants serologically.Donald C. Shreffler D. Snell published two papers that marked the beginwas still a graduate student at the University of Chicago ning of a modern inquiry into the nature of the Mhc.at that time, dreaming of becoming an agriculturist.These works also mark the beginning of an interminableThe "serum serological" or Ss protein, his laissez-passer interest in the Mhc shared by an ever-growing coterie to the H2 show, did not enter his dreams until a dozen of students.To an immunogeneticist, 1951 is the annus years later.And in Prague, too, the protagonists of the mirabilis, a remarkable year in which the first hints of future Czech School of Immunogenetics were in various what later would be recognized as two essential properstages of completing their education.In all fairness, ties of the Mhc-its polymorphism and its genetic comhowever, in 1950 W. Elwood Briles, W. H. McGibbon, plexity-were revealed.But to grasp the true signifiand M. R. Irwin (see Owen 1989) did describe a red cance of Snell's contribution, we must place it into its blood cell antigen (then designated "D" but later reproper historical context.named "B") in the domestic fowl ("chicken"; Briles et In 1951, the only Mhc known was that of the laboratory al. 1950) that was demonstrated by Louis W. Schierman mouse, the histocompatibility 2 or H2 system.(The desand Arne W. Nordskog 11 years later to elicit the rapid ignation Mhc was not to be introduced until the early rejection of allogeneic skin grafts and was henceforth 1970s, when it became known that systems genetically recognized as the Mhc of this species (Schierman and homologous to H2 existed in many other vertebrates, Nordskog 1961).But in 1950, D (B) appeared to be and the mouse and human Mhcs were already changing nothing more than one further member of a long series the course of more than one discipline.)In 1951, Snell of chicken blood group antigens.in Bar Harbor and Peter A. Gorer in London were the In 1951, Jean Dausset at the Regional Blood Transfuonly two researchers with a vested interest in the Mhc;sion Center of the St. Antoine Hospital in Paris was all other major players in the Mhc drama of the postenthusiastically harvesting the first fruits of his success in 1950 era were occupied with other exploits.In 1951, developing a technique for the detection of antibodies capable of agglutinating leukocytes.He was convinced at the time, however, that the antibodies present in the
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