Defective lymphopoiesis in the bone marrow of motheaten (me/me) and viable motheaten (mev/mev) mutant mice. III. Normal mouse bone marrow cells enable mev/mev prothymocytes to generate thymocytes after intravenous transfer.
Bone marrow prothymocytes from me/me and mev/mev mutant mice fail to generate thymocytes in irradiated (600 rad) +/+ wild-type recipients after intravenous injection. However, these same prothymocytes readily generate thymocytes after intrathymic injection. The results of the present study demonstrate that this apparent defect in the thymus-homing capacity of mev/mev prothymocytes can be corrected by mixing irradiated wild-type bone marrow cells with mev/mev bone marrow cells before intravenous injection. However, this defect is not corrected by passage of mev/mev bone marrow cells through the bone marrow of irradiated wild-type recipients. One interpretation of these results is that the maturation of prothymocytes is reversibly arrested in mev/mev mice by a defect in the radiosensitive compartment of the bone marrow microenvironment.
D000818:Animals; D001854:Bone Marrow Cells; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002455:Cell Division; D006410:Hematopoiesis; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D008817:Mice, Mutant Strains / Q000097:blood* / Q000502:physiology; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000637:transplantation