The Molecular Basis of Codominant Expression of the Histocompatibility-2 Genetic Region
- *Department of Microbiology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461
- Department of Immunology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461
- Department of Cell Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, New York 10461
- ǁThe Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine 04609
Abstract
H-2 alloantigens in an intact, undegraded form can be solubilized by the nonionic detergent NP-40 and isolated by indirect immunoprecipitation and electrophoresis in sodium dodecyl sulfate on polyacrylamide gels. With the use of an immunological precipitation method, the question about the number of cellular H-2 gene products in heterozygous cells has been partially resolved. At least four separable gene products were detected in cells heterozygous at the H-2 genetic region—one for each of the H-2D genes of the two parental haplotypes, and one for each of the H-2K genes of the two parental haplotypes. This is in contrast to the two H-2 gene products reported previously for cells homozygous at the H-2 region. The findings establish that the two parental H-2 haplotypes on homologous chromosomes in heterozygous cells are ultimately expressed as different glycoprotein molecules.
