Abstract
Strain-specific polyvalent anoantisera may be obtained by injecting lymphocytes pooled from several different strains into an inbred recipient. 6 sera of this type were produced in rats and 23 in mice. A dye-exclusion microcytotoxic test was used to evaluate the strain specificity of such sera. A total of 663 out of 713 (93·0%) of the tests conformed with expectation, but there were 48 (6·7%) false negative results in which the test failed to detect non-authentic animals. There were also 2 (0·3%) false positive results, in which authentic animals were shown as non-authentic. These were attributed to technical errors. Most false negative results occurred when serum and test cell suspensions matched at the major histocompatibility complex.
It was concluded that the use of strain-specific polyvalent immune sera, coupled with a simple immunological test such as the microcytotoxic test, offers a sensitive and quick new method for routine genetic quality control.