Major histocompatibility locus of rhesus monkeys (RhL-A).

TISSUE typing in rhesus monkeys is an essential prerequisite of organ and bone marrow transplantation in this and other laboratories. Since our first demonstrations in 1965 that leucocyte antigens are relevant for histocompatibility in primates1, two leucocyte specificities of rhesus monkeys have been defined serologically2 and since then the number of available iso-antisera has gradually increased. Although most of the reagents are not monospecific, the inheritance of the leucocyte “groups” suggests that they are controlled by genes segregating as single units in a Mendelian fashion3, but the data previously obtained were insufficient for a thorough genetic analysis.