Requirement for enhancer specificity in immunoglobulin heavy chain locus regulation.

The intronic Emicro enhancer has been implicated in IgH locus transcription, VDJ recombination, class switch recombination, and somatic hypermutation. How Emicro controls these diverse mechanisms is still largely unclear, but transcriptional enhancer activity is thought to play a central role. In this study we compare the phenotype of mice lacking the Emicro element (DeltaEmicro) with that of mice in which Emu was replaced with the ubiquitous SV40 transcriptional enhancer (SV40eR mutation) and show that SV40e cannot functionally complement Emu loss in pro-B cells.

CXC chemokine ligand 13 plays a role in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is a Tcell-mediated autoimmune disease of the CNS that is widely used as an animal model of multiple sclerosis. In this study, we investigate the role of CXCL13, a chemokine involved in the development and organization of secondary lymphoid tissues, in the pathogenesis of EAE. We detected CXCL13 mRNA and protein in spinal cords of mice with EAE.

IL-12 dependent/IFN gamma independent expression of CCR5 by myelin-reactive T cells correlates with encephalitogenicity.

Experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) is an inflammatory demyelinating disease with similarities to multiple sclerosis (MS). It is induced in mice by the transfer of myelin-reactive T cells. Here we demonstrate that IL-12 stimulates myelin-reactive T cells to up-regulate the beta-chemokine receptor, CCR5, in correlation with the acquisition of central nervous system-infiltrating and encephalitogenic properties.

The Use of Spectral Analysis of Limiting Dilution for Investigating the Immune Response.

In this study we present a method for characterizing a spectrum of cells engaged in the humoral response by two parameters: the frequency and potential activity of antigen specific precursor cells. Spleen cells from mice immunized with ovalbumin were placed in microcultures in a limiting dilution assay. The values derived from positive cultures in an activity/cell number plot were compatible with Poisson distributions for distinct families of precursor cells displaying either positive or negative (suppressor-like) activities.