Cellular Stages and Molecular Steps of Murine B-cell Development (original) (raw)

  1. F. Melchers,
  2. A. Strasser,
  3. S.R. Bauer,
  4. A. Kudo,
  5. P. Thalmann, and
  6. A. Rolink
  7. Basel Institute for Immunology, Basel, Switzerland

Excerpt

During embryonic development of the mouse, B lymphocytes are generated in several waves at different sites in the body (Owen et al. 1974; Melchers et al. 1975; Melchers 1977a,b; Alt et al. 1981; Maki et al. 1982; Reynolds and Morris 1983; Paige et al. 1984). One of these sites is the fetal liver where, at day 13 of gestation, progenitor cells begin to rearrange gene segments of the immunoglobulin (Ig) loci to become precursor (pre-) B cells and later antigen- and mitogen-sensitive B cells. Early stages of progenitor proliferation and inductions to Ig gene rearrangements have been found to be dependent on cells of the environment of B-cell-generating organs, called stromal cells (Kincade et al. 1981; Whitlock et al. 1985; Dorshkind et al. 1986; Gisler et al. 1987; Witte et al. 1987; Kinashi et al. 1988; Pietrangeli et al. 1988; Palacios et al. 1989). Some of the effects of stromal...