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. 1973 Nov 30;138(6):1545–1563. doi: 10.1084/jem.138.6.1545

SPECIFIC MURINE B-CELL ACTIVATION BY SYNTHETIC SINGLE- AND DOUBLE-STRANDED POLYNUCLEOTIDES

Irwin Scher 1, Douglas M Strong 1, Aftab Ahmed 1, Richard C Knudsen 1, Kenneth W Sell 1
PMCID: PMC2139448  PMID: 4543458

Abstract

The synthetic single- and double-stranded polynucleotides, poly I, poly C, and poly I·C, were shown to induce thymidine incorporation in six inbred strains of murine spleen cells. This stimulation was shown to be secondary to B-cell activation and not due to contamination of the polynucleotides with bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS). The ability of poly I·C to act as a B-cell mitogen, in addition to its behavior as a thymic-independent antigen, suggested that these two phenomena may be related. The similarity of the molecular structure of poly I·C to LPS, a material which also acts as a thymic-independent antigen and a B-cell mitogen, supports the hypothesis that the polyvalent nature of these materials accounts for their functional interaction with murine B cells.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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