Genetics of resistance to Trypanosoma congolense infection

Abstract

The principal goals of this investigation were (1) to study the inheritance of resistance to Trypanosoma congolense in mice, (2) to develop an assay for assessing the activity of the murine alternative pathway of complement based on its opsonizing activity, and (3) to determine if the opsonizing ability of the alternative pathway correlates with the genetic control of resistance to T. congolense in mice. To achieve these objectives, susceptible BALB/c and resistant C57BL/6 mice were crossed to produce reciprocal F1 and F2 generations. Ten-week old, female mice were infected with 103 T. congolense parasites. T. congolense became detectable in the blood of infected mice on day 4 in both susceptible and resistant mice and the growths of parasitaemia were similar for the next 24 hours. By day 6, BALB/c mice had higher parasitaemias than C57BL/6 mice (p $