Syngeneic lines of chickens. VI. Immunoglobulin allotypes.

In the course of study of alloantigenic immunoglobulin polymorphisms in 10 inbred chicken lines we detected 7 IgG allotypic specificities and 3 IgM allotypes. All birds in a given line possessed a unique combination of several IgG alloantigenic specificities (forming the phenogroup) which is presumably controlled by one allele at the locus designated a. We found five such phenogroups and five corresponding alleles (allele ac in three C lines, aI in three I lines, aW in two W lines, aM in line M, and aF in line F) in inbred lines tested. Furthermore, it could be inferred that each IgM allotype is the marker of one allele at the locus D. The distribution of these alleles among inbred lines was determined (allele dC was present in lines C and F, allele dI in lines I and M, and allele dW in lines W). A 2.8% recombination between loci a and d that are linked was found. The study of linkage between immunoglobulin allotype loci and blood group loci A, E, B, C, D, and I revealed no deviation from independent assortment of thse loci.