Editing Histocompatibility (section)

== Discovery ==
The discovery of the MHC and role of histocompatibility in transplantation was a combined effort of many scientists in the 20th century. A genetic basis for transplantation rejection was proposed in a 1914 Nature paper by [[C. C. Little|C.C. Little]] and [[Ernest Tyzzer|Ernest Tyyzer]], which showed that tumors transplanted between genetically identical mice grew normally, but tumors transplanted between non-identical mice were rejected and failed to grow.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Auchincloss H, Winn HJ | title = Clarence Cook Little (1888-1971): the genetic basis of transplant immunology | journal = American Journal of Transplantation | volume = 4 | issue = 2 | pages = 155–9 | date = February 2004 | pmid = 14974934 | doi = 10.1046/j.1600-6143.2003.00324.x | s2cid = 39596314 | doi-access = free }}</ref> The role of the immune system in transplant reject was proposed by [[Peter Medawar]], whose skin graft transplants in world war two victims showed that skin transplants between individuals had much higher rejection rates than self-transplants within an individual, and that suppressing the immune system delayed skin transplant rejection.<ref>{{cite journal | vauthors = Starzl TE | title = Peter Brian Medawar: father of transplantation | journal = Journal of the American College of Surgeons | volume = 180 | issue = 3 | pages = 332–6 | date = March 1995 | pmid = 7874344 | pmc = 2681237 }}</ref> Medawar shared the 1960 Nobel Prize in part for this work.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1960/speedread.html|title=The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1960 - Speed Read|website=www.nobelprize.org|access-date=2018-02-26}}</ref>

In the 1930s and 1940s, [[George Davis Snell|George Snell]] and [[Peter Alfred Gorer|Peter Gorer]] individually isolated the genetic factors that when similar allowed transplantation between mouse strains, naming them H and antigen II respectively. These factors were in fact one and the same, and the locus was named H-2. Snell coined the term "histocompatibility" to describe the relationship between the H-2 cell-surface proteins and transplant acceptance.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Immunology : understanding the immune system|first= Klaus D.|last = Elgert | name-list-style = vanc |date=2009|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=9780470081570|edition= 2nd|location=Hoboken, N.J.|oclc=320494512}}</ref> The human version of the histocompatibility complex was found by [[Jean Dausset]] in the 1950s, when he noticed that recipients of blood transfusions were producing antibodies directed against only the donor cells.<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1980/speedread.html |title=The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1980 - Speed Read|website=www.nobelprize.org|access-date=2018-02-26}}</ref> The target of these antibodies, or the human leukocyte antigens (HLA), were discovered to be the human homologue of Snell and Gorer's mouse MHC. Snell, Dausset and [[Baruj Benacerraf]] shared the 1980 Nobel Prize for the discovery of the MHC and HLA.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/medicine/laureates/1980/speedread.html|title=The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1980 - Speed Read|website=www.nobelprize.org|access-date=2018-02-26}}</ref>