The world's first wiki where authorship really matters (Nature Genetics, 2008). Due credit and reputation for authors. Imagine a global collaborative knowledge base for original thoughts. Search thousands of articles and collaborate with scientists around the globe.

wikigene or wiki gene protein drug chemical gene disease author authorship tracking collaborative publishing evolutionary knowledge reputation system wiki2.0 global collaboration genes proteins drugs chemicals diseases compound
Hoffmann, R. A wiki for the life sciences where authorship matters. Nature Genetics (2008)
 
 
 
 
 

Organ-specific autoimmunity induced by adult thymectomy and cyclophosphamide-induced lymphopenia.

Autoimmune gastritis, a CD4+ T cell-mediated organ-specific autoimmune disease, can be induced by thymectomy of neonatal, but not of older, BALB/c mice. Here we have shown that autoimmune gastritis can also be induced in 6-8-week-old BALB/c mice by thymectomy combined with a single dose of cyclophosphamide (300 mg/kg). This treatment reduced the numbers of splenic T and B cells approximately 25-fold. However, by 8 days after treatment, the number of splenic lymphocytes had returned to normal adult levels. Approximately 50% of treated mice developed autoimmune gastritis after 10-12 weeks. These mice had mononuclear cellular infiltrates within the gastric mucosa and serum autoantibodies to the alpha and beta subunits of the gastric H+/K+ ATPase. Transgenic mice, expressing the gastric H+/K+ ATPase beta-subunit in the thymus (Alderuccio, F., Toh, B. H., Tan, S. S., Gleeson, P. A. and van Driel, I. R., J. Exp. Med. 1993. 178: 419), did not develop autoimmune gastritis after the adult thymectomy/cyclophosphamide treatment. Thus a T cell response to the H+/K+ ATPase beta-subunit is likely to be required for the onset of gastritis. These observations suggest that pathogenic autoreactive T cells exist in the periphery of normal adult mice and that autoimmunity can be induced by the activation of these autoreactive T cells following transient lymphopenia. Cyclophosphamide-treatment of adult mice without thymectomy did not induce autoimmune gastritis, suggesting thymic regulation of these pathogenic T cells.[1]

References

  1. Organ-specific autoimmunity induced by adult thymectomy and cyclophosphamide-induced lymphopenia. Barrett, S.P., Toh, B.H., Alderuccio, F., van Driel, I.R., Gleeson, P.A. Eur. J. Immunol. (1995) [Pubmed]
 
WikiGenes - Universities