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. 1973 Oct;70(10):2879–2883. doi: 10.1073/pnas.70.10.2879

Absence of Detectable IgM in Enzymatically or Biosynthetically Labeled Thymus-Derived Lymphocytes

B Lisowska-Bernstein 1, A Rinuy 1, P Vassalli 1
PMCID: PMC427130  PMID: 4542780

Abstract

Surface proteins of mouse thymus and spleen cells were radioiodinated with lactoperoxidase. After solubilization, the labeled proteins were precipitated by antibodies directed against mouse immunoglobulin chains; the precipitates were analyzed by radioautography after Na dodecyl sulfate-gel electrophoresis. Radioactive μ and L chains were absent from thymocyte extracts and conspicuous in spleen-cell extracts. The following cells were biosynthetically labeled for 4 hr [35S]methionine or 24 hr with [14C]leucine: (1) Thymocytes, (2) cortisoneresistant thymocytes [both treated with rabbit antisera cytotoxic to bone marrow-derived (B) lymphocytes and IgM-containing plasma cells, to kill possible contaminating nonthymus-derived cells], (3) “activated thymocytes” (allogeneic cell cultures of cortisone-resistant thymocytes), (4) human Daudi cells (a B lymphoblastic cell line), and (5) purified mouse B spleen lymphocytes devoid of plasma cells. Again no μ and L chains could be detected in thymocyte or thymus-derived cell extracts by immune precipitation and gel electrophoresis, while these chains were conspicuous in B-cell extracts. “Educated thymocytes,” obtained from spleens of lethally irradiated mice injected with syngeneic thymocytes and antigen, synthesized μ and L chains under similar conditions; this synthesis resulted from contamination of these cells by IgM-containing plasma cells.

Keywords: B lymphocyte, lymphocyte receptor

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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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