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  • Title: Evidence for elevated prothymocyte activity in the bone marrow of New Zealand Black (NZB) mice. Elevated prothymocyte activity in NZB mice.
    Author: Hayes SM, Greiner DL.
    Journal: Thymus; 1992 May; 19(3):157-72. PubMed ID: 1585412.
    Abstract:
    New Zealand Black (NZB) mice spontaneously develop an autoimmune syndrome similar to that of systemic lupus erythematosus. Numerous abnormalities in T lymphocyte development have been reported in NZB mice, and the autoimmune syndrome can be adoptively transferred to naive recipients using bone marrow cells. In the present study, we have used an adoptive transfer system to study quantitatively the relative prothymocyte activity of marrow in either young (4-6 weeks of age) or older (8-10 months of age) NZB mice. Our results demonstrate that NZB marrow has approximately 7-fold more prothymocyte activity than that of marrow in SEA mice, a histocompatible, non-autoimmune prone normal strain of mice. This was ascertained by a competitive repopulation assay, in which mixtures of NZB and SEA prothymocytes were compared directly for their ability to repopulate the thymus of adoptive recipients. This increase in prothymocyte activity in the primary recipient of NZB marrow was associated with an increased competitive advantage of NZB marrow prothymocytes over that of SEA marrow prothymocytes in repopulating the hemopoietic (bone marrow) compartment of the primary host. These findings suggest that elevated prothymocyte activity in NZB mice, along with our previously presented evidence for abnormalities of thymocytopoiesis in NZB mice, may be important in their predisposition for autoimmunity.
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