Figure 3

Enhanced splenomegaly and lymphadenopathy in Mcl-1tg/lpr mice is primarily due to elevated lymphoid populations. (a) Enumeration of myeloid populations (Mac1⁺Gr1⁺ and Mac1⁺Gr1^– cells) in the spleen and peripheral blood of mice aged 8, 14 and 21 weeks. Data represent the average of 5-12 individual mice±S.E.M. (b) Enumeration of conventional T cells (CD4⁺CD8⁻ and CD4⁻CD8⁺) and non-conventional DN T cells (TCRβ⁺CD4⁻CD8^–B220⁺); and (c) B lymphoid populations (B220⁺IgM⁻IgD⁻, B220⁺IgM⁺IgD⁻and B220⁺IgM⁺IgD⁺) in lymph nodes (inguinal, axillary and brachial lymph nodes) of mice aged 8, 14 and 21 weeks. Data represent average of 6–12 individual mice±S.E.M. *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001, calculated by Student’s T-test with Welch’s correction. An equal proportion of male and female mice were studied, with no gender differences being observed. Refer to Supplementary Tables S1-3 for complete data and Supplementary Figure S2 for gating strategies. Analysis of the B lymphoid compartment using CD19 as a marker rather than B220 revealed that the TCRβ⁻B220⁺IgM⁻IgD^– population enumerated in (c) contained a number of non-conventional DN T cells with low TCRβ expression. Thus, although B lymphoid cell numbers were indeed elevated in Mcl-1tg/lpr mice compared with lpr mice, the actual increase was less than it had appeared using B220 as the marker: ~3-fold at 14 weeks rather than ~6-fold (see Supplementary Figure S3 and Supplementary Table S2)