On 11 Jul 2002 03:53:07 -0700, Gary <cool_and_funky at yahoo.com> wrote:
>Does anyone have any idea how the nude mouse compares in terms of the
>number of lymphocytes one would expect to see in its blood? I'm aware
>that the nude mouse is for all intents and purposes athymic, meaning
>that there is a lack of immunologically mature lymphocytes and a loss
>of ability to recognise non-self cells, but does this mean that there
>would actually be a decreased overall number of lymphocytes in the
>bloodstream, or would there be an equivalent number of cells (compared
>to a immunocompetent mouse) but these cells would be effectively
>unable to elicit an immune response?
Although there is a small amount of extra-thymic T cell development in
older nude mice, younger mice have almost no peripheral T cells (B cell
and NK cell development is not affected, however). This makes nude mice
severely lymphopenic (they are used as adoptive transfer recipients to
look at T cell homeostatic proliferation for just this reason).
Ken Frauwirth
--
Ken Frauwirth (MiSTie #33025) kfrauwir at mail.med.upenn.edu
Abramson Cancer Research Institute
University of Pennsylvania
http://mail.med.upenn.edu/~kfrauwir
"Science in those days worked in broad strokes. They got right to the
point. Nowadays it's just molecule, molecule, molecule."
The Tick
