SPECIFIC AND NONSPECIFIC RESISTANCE 



globulin for use as a metabolic thing. The point that I am trying 

 to make is that antibody, as such, is not only a constituent of 

 gamma globulin, but it is a part of a protein which can be em- 

 ployed by the animal as a source of amino acid for protein meta- 

 bolism very nicely; and I am sure that under these circumstances, 

 the turnover rate of protein in the animal is related to antibody 

 production; at least I feel there must be a correlation here; 

 however, I am certainly not an authority in that area, 



CAMPBELL: We have shown that the half- life of protein de- 

 creased rather measurably under cold. There has been some 

 preliminary work done which has been extremely interesting 

 with tagged amino acids and tagged gamma globulin, and it would 

 seem, as far as antibody protein goes, that in the normal syn- 

 thesis, the body prefers amino acids to gamma globulin. When 

 you start immunizing or bleeding, the body seems to prefer 

 gamma globulin. So if you label these two things, in one situation, 

 the amino acids will be incorporated; in the other case, the 

 gamma globulin is broken down and reincorporated. 



McCLAUGHRY: In relation to Dr. Previte's question about 

 homeothermia, I don't believe the temperature of a homeothermic 

 animal Is anywhere near as fixed as has been discussed here. 

 As a matter of fact, Adolf showed that if the conditions vary 

 the thermostat may be re-set at a slightly different level, per- 

 haps 1° C or 2° C from the original, after acclimatization. This 

 varies in different physiological regulatory mechanisms, and I 

 think that this has to be taken into account in the experiment 

 that has been reported. 



BERRY: Dr. Miraglia has some results related to this point. 

 He was given some black mice from NIH and DBA, weren't they? 



MARCUS: They have a variety of types; DBA, CBA. 



BERRY: These mice were placed at 5° C. They were all dead 

 within 24 hours. They were completely unable to withstand this 



5 Am. J. PhysioU 166: 62. 1951. 



211 



