FIGURE 2.
Pregnancy does not affect serum levels of OVA-specific IgG1 and IgE. C57BL/6J female mice were immunized three times with OVA-Al(OH)3 (at weekly intervals) and 9 days later were challenged daily, for 7 days, with aerosolized OVA as described in Materials and Methods. Seven weeks later, select females were bred with naive C57BL/6J males and both pregnant and nonpregnant females were re-exposed to aerosolized OVA on days corresponding to E11–17 of pregnancy. Serum was collected 24 h after the last aerosol exposure (E18) and concentrations of OVA-specific IgG1 or IgE in serum were determined by ELISA. Results are from one experiment (three mice per group) and the absence of detectable differences between pregnant and nonpregnant mice was consistent with analyses of eight other mice in separate experiments.