Apoptosis is the common phenotype of programmed or physiologic cell death, the process used to remove excess or defunct cells during normal tissue maintenance. One of the most studied cell types with respect to apoptosis is the immature T cell from the thymus, which activates its death program in response ...

Development of T lymphocyte is a complex process that depends on both thymocytestromal cell interactions and the production of soluble factors such as cytokines, peptides, and hormones. In many tissues, the concentration of active biological peptides is regulated locally by a specialized family of enzymes: the ectopeptidases. We show here ...

Indium arsenide and gallium arsenide are important new materials in the semiconductor industry due to their superior electronic properties in comparison with the older silicon-based materials. Animal experiments have shown that exposure to these compounds induces marked alterations in gene expression and immune response. Toxicity to the immune system has ...

Many signals that cause apoptotic cell death operate by inducing transcription and translation of other (presumably death effector) mediators, and it is well established that stimulus-induced apoptosis can often be blocked by inhibiting transcription and translation. Transcriptional regulation of apoptosis, however, is incompletely understood. To gain insight into nuclear events ...

E2/CD99 is a 32-kDa transmembrane molecule that does not belong to any known family of proteins. It appears to regulate adhesion properties of T cells as previously reported, in particular, the induction of homotypic adhesion in CD4+ CD8+ thymocytes. Apoptosis induced via E2/CD99 displays characteristic morphologic features, but includes early ...

In quiescent thymocytes, mitochondrial de-energization was not correlated to apoptotic death. In fact, thymocytes treated with oligomycin, a highly specific inhibitor of ATP synthase, alone or with atractyloside to block ATP translocation from the cytoplasm, were alive, even if their mitochondria were depolarized, as revealed by flow cytometry after Rhodamine ...

Products of recombination activating genes (RAG-1 and RAG-2) involved in the rearrangement of Ig genes have been shown to be expressed only in immature stages of B cells. However, we have recently found that RAG genes were re-expressed in mature mouse B cells activated in vitro and in germinal centers ...

Cell death plays a critical role in the generation of an effective immune system. During maturation T lymphocytes are generated, censored and eliminated in the thymus. These events are temporally associated with developmental changes in the levels of transcription factors including NFAT. The NFAT transcription factor (nuclear factor of activated ...

2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin (TCDD) is well known for its immunotoxic effects particularly on the thymus. The exact mechanism by which TCDD induces thymic atrophy is not clear. In the current study, we investigated whether TCDD triggers apoptosis in thymocytes, when administered in vivo, by using the TdT-mediated FITC-dUTP nick end labeling method ...

bcl-x, a homologous gene of bcl-2, has an anti-apoptotic function and appears to play a critical role in the development of lymphoid systems. To investigate the effect of overexpressed Bcl-x(L) on the development of T lymphocytes, we established two lines of transgenic mice by using Emu-chicken bcl-x(L) (cbcl-x(L)) transgene, where ...

Apoptosis is a controlled form of cell death accompanied by distinct morphological and biochemical changes. In this study the nature of cytotoxicity induced by adriamycin (ADM) in rat thymocytes was evaluated. Morphological and biochemical changes characteristic of apoptosis were found to precede adriamycin-induced cell death. Our findings demonstrate the involvement ...

Glucocorticoid can induce apoptosis of thymocytes, but its mechanism is not clear yet. In this study, we reported that dexamethasone-induced apoptosis was associated with intracellular alkalinization. Dexamethasone induced a higher percentage of apoptosis in 138 mM than in 50 mM NaCl, total abrogation of apoptosis was noted in NaCl-depleted culture ...

An in vitro experimental model was developed to characterize the cellular and molecular factors that regulate germinal center (GC)-B-cell differentiation and apoptosis. In the culture system that sustains the GC-B-cell survival, CD40L stimulation is essential for GC-B-cell proliferation and differentiation in the presence of 1L-2, IL-4, and IL-10. IL-2 and ...

DNA topoisomerase II is a nuclear enzyme that modulates DNA topology during several metabolic processes and is the target of several antitumor drugs. The primary effect of anticancer agents is to induce apoptosis. The present study showed that etoposide, a topoisomerase II inhibitor which forms cleavable complexes, induced apoptosis in ...

A major mechanism maintaining immune tolerance is the deletion of potentially autoreactive thymocytes by apoptosis during development in the thymus. Previous reports suggest that apoptosis is induced by high avidity signals transduced via the T cell receptor; however, the role of signals transduced by other cell surface receptors during thymic ...

Synthetic glucocorticoids (GCs), which possess a different radical substituted in position 16 of the steroid nucleus structure, display various antiproliferative activities on activated lymphoid cells. We analysed this structure-function relationship between dexamethasone (DEX; methyl group in position 16 alpha) and beta-methasone (BM; methyl group in position 16 beta) with regard ...

Unlike splenic or blood lymphocytes, rat thymocytes spontaneously undergo continuously increasing apoptosis during culture. In this study we characterized apoptotic thymus cells of rats according to cell size, nuclear dye binding and surface marker expression. Furthermore, the effects of cell density in culture, the age of the donor animals, glucocorticoids, ...

Glucocorticoids (GCS) profoundly inhibit several aspects of T cell immunity largely through inhibition of cytokine expression at the transcriptional and posttranscriptional levels. GCS were also reported to act indirectly by inducing transforming growth factor-beta expression, which in turn blocks T cell immunity. In exerting their antiproliferative effects, GCS diffuse into ...

Less than 5% of immature CD4/CD8 double-positive (DP) thymocytes are positively selected to survive and differentiate into single-positive CD4 and CD8 T cells, while self-reactive DP thymocytes undergo apoptosis (negative selection). Both positive and negative selection events are active processes that involve signaling through the T cell receptors (TCRs) and ...

Levels of radiation-induced jejunal crypt cell apoptosis were compared in C57BL/6J, C3Hf/Kam and C3H/HeJ mice. Apoptosis levels were consistently lower in the C3H strains than in C57BL/6J. Although other explanations are possible, the strain difference is most likely to have a genetic basis, and in fact a preliminary analysis of ...

The present article reports a multiparametric cytofluorimetric analysis of apoptosis in murine thymocytes and human PBMC from healthy donors or HIV-infected patients. We have evaluated four previously described cytofluorimetric methods of apoptosis quantification, each of them detecting distinct cellular alterations of the apoptosis process. Reduced DNA stainability was detected with ...

Numerous immature thymocytes undergo apoptosis and are rapidly engulfed by phagocytic thymic macrophages. The macrophage surface receptors involved in apoptotic thymocyte recognition are unknown. We have examined the role of the class A macrophage scavenger receptor (SR-A) in the engulfment of apoptotic thymocytes. Uptake of steroid-treated apoptotic thymocytes by thymic ...

The B-lymphocyte-specific transcriptional factor called Oct binding factor (OBF)-1, OCA-B or Bob1 (refs 1-3) is thought to be involved in the transcription of immunoglobulin genes through recruitment to the highly conserved octamer site of immunoglobulin promoters, mediated by either Oct-1 or Oct-2. To define the in vivo role of OBF-1 ...

Apoptosis of normal thymocytes was shown to be triggered by several mechanisms (e.g. glucocorticoids, gamma-irradiation). In the present study the authors report on thymocyte apoptosis that is induced by thymic epithelial cells. The thymocytes undergo a massive apoptotic death within 24 h of cocultivation with thymic epithelial cell monolayers derived ...

In the present study, we investigated whether apoptosis in hematopoietic cells is associated with changes in cellular phosphotyrosine content. Murine thymocytes and B cells, human leukemia cells, and normal peripheral blood leukocytes were induced to undergo apoptosis by treatment with specific stimuli or by incubation in growth factor-deprived medium. Multiparameter ...

Successful outcome of autologous bone marrow transplantation (BMT) is severely handicapped by susceptibility to infection and by a high rate of relapse. While quantitative aspects of the immune system generally return to normal within the first 3-4 months after BMT, the recovery of qualitative immune functions is prolonged. Since interleukin-7 ...

Peroxynitrite is a strong oxidant that reacts with a variety of biomolecules in vivo and in vitro. When rat thymocytes in phosphate buffer are exposed to 25 microM peroxynitrite for 10 min, DNA single strand breaks (SSB) can be detected. These SSB are repaired if the cells are incubated in ...

Apoptosis plays a critical role during T cell development, both in the generation of functionally competent T cells in the thymus and the regulation of peripheral T cell populations. The fate of any T cell, whether it is developing in the thymus, or functioning in the peripheral immune system, is ...

In the immune system, apoptosis is involved in intrathymic elimination of self-reactive thymocytes and in peripheral T cell tolerance to exogenous antigens. Here, we describe the role in T cell apoptosis of P(2x1), a nonselective cation channel activated by ATP. P(2X1) molecules are up-regulated in thymocytes during dexamethasone-induced apoptosis, and ...

CD27 is a lymphocyte-specific member of the TNF receptor family and has a TNF-related transmembrane ligand, CD70. The CD27/CD70 receptor-ligand pair cooperates with the TCR in the regulation of the peripheral T cell response. The study presented here reveals that CD27 may play a similar role in thymic pre-T cell ...

The effect of calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP), a neuropeptide, on the apoptosis of murine thymocytes was investigated. CGRP enhanced apoptosis of thymocytes beyond the spontaneous level at concentrations of 10(-11) M or higher, and the effect attained a plateau at 10(-9) M, mainly by stimulating cAMP formation. Implication of cAMP-independent ...

The elimination of cell populations in vivo often relies on reagents that are self-limiting, are difficult to design and produce or contain highly toxic components. Here we describe a novel immunotherapy using molecules that combine a cell-specific ligand and a hapten binding to preexisting antibodies in serum. The F(ab')2 fragment ...

In the present study, the effects of vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP) and the pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptides, PACAP27 and PACAP38, in a concentration range from 10(-13) to 10(-6) mol/L were studied in vitro on the spontaneous and dexamethasone (DEX)-induced apoptosis in rat thymocytes. The results show that VIP and both ...

The nucleoside analogue cordycepin (3'-deoxyadenosine), when protected against ADA deamination, is specifically cytotoxic for TdT-positive leukemia cells. Cordycepin-treated, ADA-inhibited, TdT-positive cells undergo the classic changes associated with drug-induced apoptosis: reduction in cell volume, chromatin clumping, membrane blebbing, and 180-bp multimer DNA laddering on agarose gels. In common with the apoptosis ...

We describe a novel technique for studying the signaling pathways that control thymocyte negative selection which maintains the essential interactions between thymocytes and thymic stromal cells. Bisected lobes from newborn mouse thymus are maintained in organ culture for up to 36 h, and the thymocytes analyzed by flow cytometry. Inclusion ...

We have studied the mechanisms involved in TcR-independent apoptosis of radiation leukemia virus (RadLV)-transformed thymocyte clones induced by a thymic epithelial cell line (TEC). TEC induced apoptosis of an immature CD4+8+3+ (PD1.6) but not of a CD4-8-3- (B10) thymocyte clone. TEC-derived conditioned medium did not mimic the signal induced by ...

Members of the E2F transcription factor family (E2F-1-E2F-5) are believed to be critical positive regulators of cell cycle progression in eukaryotes although the in vivo functions of the individual E2Fs have not been elucidated. Mice were generated that lack E2F-1 and, surprisingly, these mice develop and reproduce normally. However, E2F-1-/- ...

Thymocytes were used as a model system to study the effect of microenvironmental pH changes on the radiation-induced apoptosis. We found that the sensitivity of thymocytes toward radiation induced apoptosis is increased by increasing the pH of the incubation medium. The major sensitivity change occurs between pH 7 and 8. ...

Administration of anti-TCR/CD3epsilon antibody in vivo or in thymic organ culture results in the apoptotic death of CD4+/CD8+ thymocytes. In contrast, purified thymocytes in suspension culture are resistant to TCR/CD3epsilon-induced apoptotic death. We show that induction of thymocyte death, in suspension culture, can be induced by the combination of TCR/CD3epsilon ...

6-Hydroxydopamine (6-OHDA) induces degeneration of noradrenergic nerves and has been shown to alter the immune responses. In this study, intraperitoneal administration of 6-OHDA induces mouse thymus atrophy. The lowest levels of thymus weight and cell number were reached at days 3 and 5 in mice receiving 6-OHDA treatment; they gradually ...

Lipocortin I, also called annexin I, a calcium and phospholipid binding protein, protected rat thymocytes from H2O2-elicited necrosis and facilitated H2O2-induced apoptosis, while anti-lipocortin I antibody enhanced H202-elicited necrosis by blocking H202-induced apoptosis. Essentially similar results were obtained with phospholipase A2 inhibitors and activators such as 3,4-octyadecyl-benzylacrylic acid and melittin, ...

Thymocytes differentiate by positive and negative selection of immature CD4+ CD8+ T cells. Negative selection occurs by default or by high-affinity recognition of peptides bound to proteins encoded by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC). MHC class I molecules are expressed on many different cell types, although at different levels, whereas ...

Thymocyte apoptosis is one of the best characterized experimental models of apoptosis that can be induced by a variety of stimuli such as glucocorticoids, ionizing radiation, antibodies, and toxins. Recently, it has been suggested that oxidative stress is a common mediator of apoptosis. However, little is known about the production ...

Although it is generally agreed that TCR ligation is a minimal requirement for negative selection in the CD4+8+ double-positive (DP) thymocyte subset, the costimulatory requirements and specific signaling events necessary to induce apoptosis are not well defined. We have explored the consequences of cross-linking CD3/TCR complexes on thymocytes from H-Y ...

Rat thymocytes spontaneously undergo apoptotic death in cell culture, and are also sensitive to the induction of apoptosis by various stimuli. We show that unstimulated thymocytes constitutively express a p50-containing nuclear factor kappa B (NF kappa B)/rel DNA-binding activity in their nuclei. When the cells were fractionated by density-gradient centrifugation ...

We compared apoptosis in mouse thymocytes following exposure to low doses of high linear energy transfer (LET), 62.5-MeV (p-->Be+) fast neutrons and low LET, 4-MeV photons by flow cytometric analysis of hypodiploid cells. The incidence of apoptotic cell death rose steeply at very low radiation doses reaching a plateau of ...

Glucocorticoid (GC)-induced apoptosis is a well-recognized physiologic regulator of murine T-cell number and function. We have analyzed its mechanisms in human mature T cells, which have been thought to be insensitive until recently. Peripheral blood T cells showed sensitivity to GC-induced apoptosis soon after the proliferative response to a mitogenic ...

Apoptosis is a prominent mechanism of programmed cell death in the immune system. In the thymus apoptosis is responsible for the deletion of autoreactive T-cells during thymic differentiation. The typical features of apoptosis are characterized by nuclear and cytoplasmic morphologic changes, along with cleavage of chromatin at regularly spaced sites. ...

The Janus tyrosine kinases (Jaks) play a central role in signaling through cytokine receptors. Although Jak1, Jak2, and Tyk2 are widely expressed, Jak3 is predominantly expressed in hematopoietic cells and is known to associate only with the common gamma (gamma c) chain of the interleukin (IL)-2, IL-4, IL-7, IL-9, and ...

Activation of immature thymocytes or transformed T lymphocytes via T-cell receptor (TCR)/CD3 signalling can induce programmed cell death (apoptosis). Recent data indicate that anti-CD3/TCR monoclonal antibodies (mAb) also trigger apoptosis in activated (but not resting) mature peripheral blood T lymphocytes. Here we report that triggering of resting CD4-CD8-TCR alpha beta+ ...