THYMUS: ITS LIMITED ROLE IN THE RECOVERY OF HOMOGRAFT RESPONSE IN IRRADIATED MICE

Adult mice subjected to thymectomy or sham thymectomy received lethal irradiation and subsequent protective infusion of syngeneic bone marrow. Thirty days later they received allogeneic and xenogeneic skin grafts. Donors of the xenogeneic grafts were rats. The thymectomized mice rejected the grafts of rat skin only slightly later than the controls did; in contrast, the time of retention of allogeneic grafts was significantly longer in the thymectomized mice.