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. 1986 Mar;51(3):826–831. doi: 10.1128/iai.51.3.826-831.1986

Mechanisms underlying the depressed production of interleukin-2 in spleen and lymph node cell cultures of mice infected with Mycobacterium bovis BCG.

R Turcotte, D Legault
PMCID: PMC260972  PMID: 3081445

Abstract

Mice were infected intravenously with 1.0 mg of Mycobacterium bovis BCG. At various times thereafter, spleen and peripheral lymph node cells were stimulated with concanavalin A for 18 to 20 h, and their capacity to produce interleukin-2 (IL-2) was evaluated by means of a T-cell blast proliferation technique. A depression of IL-2 production that was complete in the spleen but partial in lymph node cell cultures occurred at 2 to 3 weeks and persisted till weeks 8 to 10 after infection. No direct evidence was found for an active suppressor mechanism depressing in vitro the production of IL-2. In spleen cell cultures the suppression of IL-2 production would result from a functional defect of the IL-2-producing T-cell subset, whereas in lymph node cell cultures the depression mainly results from a relative lack of IL-2-producing cells caused by an accumulation of immunoglobulin-positive and "null" cells. Spleen cells from BCG-infected mice maintained their capacity to acquire IL-2 receptors when activated by concanavalin A.

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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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