A single recessive gene, lpr, induces an autoimmune-lymphoproliferative syndrome in several strains of mice. The lymphoid organs of lpr/lpr mice contained cells with increased amounts of myb RNA, which codes for a protein found in the nucleus. A similar human lymphoproliferative disorder also had an increase in c-myb expression. Mouse T cells induced by mitogens to proliferate did not express large amounts of myb RNA, indicating that marked myb expression is not a general feature of lymphocyte activation and proliferation.
PBMC from patients with autoimmune diseases and from normal controls were studied for the expression of several cellular oncogenes. Gene expression was assessed by Northern blot analysis of poly(A)+ RNA obtained from leukapheresis samples. Patients with SLE expressed significantly more c-myc protooncogene RNA than did normal controls. Increased expression of the N-ras protooncogene was found in that subset of patients whose autoimmune disease was very active. Cells from individuals with SLE, but not from those with other autoimmune illnesses, showed significantly decreased levels of the c-myb and c-fos protooncogenes. To examine the implications of these findings, B and T cells were purified from apheresis samples donated by normal volunteers. When mitogen was used to activate the B cells in vitro, their pattern of protooncogene expression changed to resemble that found in freshly isolated cells from lupus patients. These results suggest that the differences detected in the expression of protooncogenes by patients with SLE may be due to the abnormal activation of their B cells in vivo. The pattern of protooncogene expression found in patients with other autoimmune illnesses is consistent with the activation of additional cell types in those diseases.
A human fetal liver cDNA library was screened at reduced hybridization stringency for v-naf-related sequences.In addition to the expected c-raf-l cDNA, a second sequence was isolated. Comparison of the second gene (pks) to the other raf-related sequences revealed nucleotide homologies of 71%.
The possibility that injection of mice with an affinity-purified goat antibody to mouse IgD (GaM delta) that stimulates polyclonal IgG1 secretion might also stimulate differentiation of B cells into IgE-secreting cells was suggested by the observation that such treatment induces T cells from those mice to secrete a lymphokine, B cell stimulatory factor 1 (BSF-1), that can stimulate both IgG1 and IgE secretion in vitro. Studies described in this paper show that injection of BALB/c mice with 200 to 3200 micrograms of GaM delta greatly increased the quantity of splenic epsilon chain-encoding mRNA, the number of spleen cells with cytoplasmic IgE, and the concentration of serum IgE 7 days after injection. Serum IgE levels obtained in these mice were approximately 100 times baseline levels and were comparable with those found in mice infected with the nematode parasite Nippostrongylus brasiliensis, but were approximately 2000-fold less than the peak serum IgG1 levels induced by GaM delta injection. Both IgE and IgG1 secretion in GaM delta injected mice were T dependent (blocked by anti-L3T4 antibody). These observations are consistent with the hypothesis that BSF-1 may play a role in the in vivo stimulation of IgE secretion and provide an easy to apply model for the investigation of in vivo regulation of IgE responses.
Fas and TNF receptor I (TNF-RI) share homology at their cytoplasmic death domain and belong to the same gene family, but utilize different pathways to signal activation-induced cell death. To determine the combined effects of defective TNF-RI and Fas signaling on lymphadenopathy and autoimmune disease, we backcrossed TNF-RI knockout mice (Tnfr1(0/0)) with Fas-deficient C57BL/6-lpr/lpr mice. Tnfr1(0/0)lpr/lpr mice developed greatly accelerated lymphadenopathy and autoantibody production compared with C57BL/6-lpr/ lpr mice. Tnfr1(0/0)-lpr/lpr mice also exhibited high mortality and early onset autoimmune disease characterized by massive mononuclear cell infiltration in liver, kidney, lung, and knee joints. These results indicate that the Fas-mediated apoptosis defect in lpr mice is accelerated in the absence of TNF-RI and that normal expression of TNF-RI might partially compensate for the Fas-mediated apoptosis defect of mononuclear cells in lpr mice.
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