Intestinal intra-epithelial lymphocytes in LEC mutant rats.
LEC rat is a novel strain showing a maturational arrest from CD4+8+ to CD4+8- cells but not to CD4-8+ cells in the thymus. In this study, we examined if this mutation affects the differentiation of intestinal intra-epithelial lymphocytes (IEL) in LEC rats. In normal rat IEL, all 4 subsets with respect to the CD4/CD8 expression were observed. The CD4-8+ population was dominant and a unique population, CD4+8+, was observed as already shown in previous papers. Both CD4+8- and CD4+8+ cells were CD3+, TCR-alpha/beta +, CD45RC-, and CD5+, whereas CD4-8+ cells consisted of a heterogeneous population, being CD3+, TCR-alpha/beta +/-, CD45RC+/-, and CD5-. In LEC rat IEL, CD4+8- and CD4+8+ cells existed normally and distribution of CD4/CD8 subsets was not different from that of normal rat IEL. Furthermore, the expression pattern of CD3, TCR-alpha/beta, CD45RC and CD5 was not different from that of normal rat IEL in each subset. These results suggest that maturational arrest of CD4+8- thymocytes does not affect IEL maturation, especially maturation of CD4+8- IEL, suggesting that the IEL maturation mechanism for CD4+8- cells is independent of that of thymocytes.
Sakai
T
T
Institute for Animal Experimentation, University of Tokushima School of Medicine, Japan.
Agui
T
T
Matsumoto
K
K
D000818:Animals; D000943:Antigens, Differentiation / Q000096:biosynthesis; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000276:immunology; D005434:Flow Cytometry; D007413:Intestinal Mucosa / Q000276:immunology*; D051381:Rats; D011916:Rats, Inbred F344 / Q000276:immunology; D011922:Rats, Mutant Strains / Q000276:immunology*; D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets / Q000276:immunology*
D000943:Antigens, Differentiation