Researchers have failed to reproduce the results of a landmark study that claimed to show mice that recover from infection can pass on stronger immunity to their future pups. New data from a separate group that conducted nearly identical experiments in parallel show no benefit to future generations of the animals, according to a report published last week (January 20) in Nature Immunology.
“As much as we tried to look for any evidence of transmission, I mean, there was literally nothing. It was like the most insignificant set of results that we’ve ever had,” says Luis Barreiro, a geneticist at the University of Chicago, who worked on the replication attempt. “It was a farfetched idea to start with, I thought.”
The original study was published in Nature Immunology in October. It reported the results of experiments that exposed adult mice to infectious fungi or zymosan, particles made from yeast used ...
