Figure 1. The liver is sufficient to mediate systemic B cell depletion following anti-CD20 treatment.

(A) Experimental set-up. A surgical procedure was undertaken to transplant WT livers into two FcRγ^−/− and one WT recipients. Mice were allowed to recover for 3 to 7 days before being injected with a single dose (50 μg) of anti-CD20 Ab (5D2). Non-transplanted FcRγ^−/− mice were used as negative controls. (B) B cell frequency measured by flow cytometry in blood before, 2 h and 16 h following anti-CD20 treatment in the indicated mice. Values were normalized to the frequency measured prior to treatment. (C) B cell frequency in the spleen of WT and FcRγ^−/−recipients transplanted with a WT liver was measured by flow cytometry at 16 hr post-treatment. Numbers show the percentage of B cells after treatment.