The spontaneously diabetic BB rat: sites of the defects leading to autoimmunity and diabetes mellitus. A review.
In summary, our bone marrow chimeras studies suggest that there are two defects in the BB rat associated with diabetes and/or lymphopenia, one residing at the level of the bone marrow lymphoid stem cell and the other within the T-cell differentiative environment, apparently postthymic. Our neonatal thymus transplantation studies and the adult thymus transplantation studies of others suggest a third defect in the BB rat, within the thymus itself, but this defect appears not to be responsible for the development of either the diabetes or the T lymphocytopenia. Rather, the thymic defect appears to control, at least in part, the lymphocyte hyporesponsiveness characteristic of the diabetes-prone BB rat. The role of the RT6 T-cell differentiation antigen in the etiopathogenesis of diabetes in this animal model remains unclear.
Scott
J
J
Department of Pediatrics, University of Virginia School of Medicine, Charlottesville 22908.
D000818:Animals; D000945:Antigens, Differentiation, T-Lymphocyte / Q000276:immunology; D015551:Autoimmunity / Q000276:immunology*; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000276:immunology; D002678:Chimera; D003920:Diabetes Mellitus / Q000276:immunology*; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D006649:Histocompatibility Antigens / Q000276:immunology; D051381:Rats; D011913:Rats, Inbred BB; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000276:immunology; D013950:Thymus Gland / Q000276:immunology / Q000637:transplantation
D000945:Antigens, Differentiation, T-Lymphocyte; D006649:Histocompatibility Antigens; C038353:histocompatibility antigens RT, rat