In human infants (<1 year), circulating IgG Abs elicited in response to most T-dependent Ags rapidly decline and return to baseline within a few months after immunization for yet-unknown reasons. In mice immunized between 1 and 4 wk of age, a limited establishment of the bone marrow (BM) pool of long-lived plasma cells is observed. In this study, we show that tetanus toxoid (TT)-specific plasmablasts generated in the spleen are efficiently attracted in vitro and in vivo toward early-life BM stromal cells, which express adult levels of CXCL12. Similarly, adoptively transferred TT plasmablasts efficiently reach the BM compartment of 2-wk-old and adult mice. In contrast, TT plasmablasts fail to persist in the early-life BM compartment, as indicated by the persistence of a significantly lower number of TT plasmablasts in the early-life compartment than in the adult BM compartment 48 h after transfer. This limited persistence is associated with an increased rate of in vivo apoptosis of TT-specific plasmablasts that have reached the early-life BM and with a significantly lower survival rate of TT-specific plasmablasts cocultured on early-life BM stromal cells compared with adult BM stromal cells. Thus, early-life BM stromal cells fail to provide the molecular signals that support plasmablast survival and differentiation into surviving plasma cells.

Suspensions of rat anterior pituitary cells were exposed to corticotropin-releasing factor (CRF) (5 nM) and various neurohormones (0.002-1000 nM). CRF-induced secretion of ACTH was doubled by 0.1 nM arginine vasopressin (AVP), 0.2 nM arginine vasotocin, 1 nM oxytocin, 10 nM angiotensin II, and 100 nM noradrenalin; vasoactive intestinal peptide had no effect at 0.2-200 nM. CRF potentiation by AVP was also observed at lower concentrations of CRF. Since AVP appeared to be the most potent modulator of CRF-induced ACTH secretion, potentiation was further tested with specific antidiuretic and oxytocic agonists. Potentiation was clearly related to pressor biological activity, less so to antidiuretic, and hardly at all to oxytocic activities. However, even at 200 nM, the antipressor antagonists dPTyr(Me)AVP and d(CH2)5Tyr(Me)AVP had no effect on potentiation by AVP. The lack of antagonism was partly due to the agonistic effects of the antagonists on the pituitary gland, an effect not observed within vascular tissue. The results thus suggest that anterior pituitary vasopressin receptors resemble, but are not identical to, V1 (pressor and hepatic), do not resemble the V2 (renal), and might be classified as V3 (pituitary) receptors.

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