Ovalbumin (OV) is present at high levels in pancreatic beta cells and in kidney proximal tubule cells and at very low levels in testes of transgenic mice. No OV has been detected immunohistologically in any of multiple other tissues examined. Mice expressing both this transgene and Tg(Tcra,Tcrb)1100Mjb (OT-1), which encodes an OV-specific T cell receptor expressed on CD8+ T lymphocytes, exhibit thymic deletion of OT-1 T cells, indicating presence of OV at very low levels in the thymus. Western blot analysis reproducibly measured the pancreatic islet OV content as 2.2 ng/ug of protein.