Effects of acute graft-vs-host disease on the liver of the brown Norway rat.
In this study we examined the effects of acute graft-vs-host disease (aGVHD) on the Brown Norway (BN) rat liver. When clinical signs of the disease appeared, rats were inoculated with fluorescent latex beads and 30 min later nonparenchymal cells were isolated from the liver. The cells were then analyzed via flow cytometry, histochemistry, and electron microscopy. Flow cytometry demonstrated that 58% of the cells from the 80 ml/min elutriation fraction (normally rich in Kupffer cells) of the non-GVHD liver had high fluorescence intensity compared to 8% in rats with aGVHD. Determination of the cellular composition of the various fractions with electron microscopy confirmed flow cytometry observations in that only 9% of the 80 ml/min elutriation fraction of GVHD livers had peroxidase-positive rough ER and the morphological appearance of macrophages as compared to 60% in the non-GVHD liver. The low percentage of fluorescent-positive Kupffer cells in the 80 ml/min elutriation fraction of the GVHD liver is attributed to a massive lymphocytic invasion of the liver and not necessarily to a defect in the mononuclear phagocyte system.
D000208:Acute Disease; D000818:Animals; D001853:Bone Marrow / Q000473:pathology; D002432:Cecum / Q000473:pathology; D005260:Female; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D006086:Graft vs Host Disease / Q000473:pathology*; D007728:Kupffer Cells / Q000473:pathology; D008099:Liver / Q000473:pathology* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D008214:Lymphocytes / Q000473:pathology; D008854:Microscopy, Electron; D051381:Rats; D011914:Rats, Inbred BN; D012867:Skin / Q000473:pathology