Figure 1. p21 overexpression inhibits age-dependent accumulation of B6/lpr effector and memory T cells.

(a) Flow cytometry of lymph node CD4⁺ T cells at 2 and 4 months of age showed reduced accumulation of B6/lpr-p21tg CD44^hiCD62L^hi and CD44^hiCD62L^lo subsets compared to B6/lpr T cells. Values show mean from one representative experiment (n = 4 mice; p < 10⁻⁵ for both subsets) of 3 performed. (b) Similar proportions of CD44^hiCD62L^hi and CD44^hiCD62L^lo CD4⁺ T cells in B6 and B6-p21tg mouse lymph nodes at 2, 4 and 8 months of age. Values show mean from one representative experiment (n = 4 mice) of 3 performed. (c) Western blot showed high p21 transgene expression in sorted naïve CD4⁺ cells from B6-p21tg and B6/lpr-p21tg mice. β-actin was used as a loading control. The samples were derived from the same experiment and the two gels were run and processed simultaneously under the same experimental conditions.