title: B lymphocyte life span, rate of division and differentiation are regulated by total cell number.
abstract: I analyzed how B cell survival, the rate of B cell division and the rate of B cell activation may be affected in mice with different numbers of peripheral B cells. For this purpose, I created bone marrow (BM) chimeras with different BM B cell production; I analyzed peripheral B cell dynamics in these animals and studied the fate of carboxyfluorescein succinimidyl ester-labeled lymph node B cells transferred into these mice. I found that in lymphopenic mice, B cell life span is shortened and the rates of terminal B cell differentiation and cell death increased. As a consequence, I did not observe accumulation of B cells in mice with reduced but constant B-cell-poiesis. These results suggest that peripheral B cell survival relies not only on the number of competitors, as previously shown, but also on the rate of throughput of cells in a particular compartment.
authors.affiliation: Basel Institute for Immunology, Basel, Switzerland. fabien.agenes@cea.fr
authors.forename: Fabien
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Agenès
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001402:B-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002455:Cell Division; D002470:Cell Survival; D007700:Kinetics; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation; D018655:Lymphocyte Count; D008231:Lymphopenia / Q000276:immunology; D051379:Mice; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000502:physiology; D018183:Transplantation Chimera