Humoral factors of "spontaneous" mutagenesis in mammals and man

The frequency of chromosome aberrations in bone-marrow cells of mice in tissue incompatibility conflicts, and in the lymphocytes of the peripheral blood of 20 patients suffering from different allergies was studied. It was established that in mice, during allograft rejection, i.e. on the 10th–15th days after grafting of allogeneic skin, the frequency of cells with chromosome aberrations increases significantly up to 12–15% against 4–5% in the control. On the 20th day after grafting, the level of chromosome aberrations falls back to the control level. In allergic patients the frequency of cells with chromosome aberrations was 10.7% (4–22%). In numerous control subjects this value did not exceed 2%. The highest level of aberrations was found during the acute stage of the disease especially in patients in the state of anaphylactic shock. No correlation was found between the frequency of aberrant cells and the action of definite allergens. The problem of the possibility of extending the above described phenomenon to non-immunocompetent cells of mammals, and of the role of immunological stress in spontaneous mutagenesis are discussed.