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A Djeha, JL Perez-Arellano and JH Brock
University Department of Immunology, Western Infirmary, Glasgow, Scotland,
UK.
Transferrin is an essential requirement for lymphocyte proliferation,
because it supplies activated lymphocytes with iron needed for cell
proliferation. However, during inflammation or an immune response, the iron
content of circulating transferrin, which is of hepatic origin, decreases.
It is hypothesized that activated lymphocytes may therefore obtain
transferrin-iron from an alternative source, and we have investigated the
possibility that transferrin is synthesized locally in lymphoid tissues. It
was found that lymph node cells from mice stimulated in vivo with Freund's
complete adjuvant were able to synthesize transferrin, and this was because
of the macrophage rather than the lymphocyte population. Transferrin
synthesized by mouse lymph node or peritoneal macrophages contained iron
and was able to promote mouse lymphocyte proliferation. Peritoneal
macrophages activated in vivo synthesized more transferrin, released more
transferrin-bound iron, and were more effective than resident macrophages
at enhancing lymphocyte proliferation. These results suggest that
transferrin synthesized by macrophages acts in a paracrine manner to
support lymphocyte proliferation, thus eliminating possible detrimental
effect of hypoferremia on the immune system.
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| Copyright © 1993 by American Society of Hematology Online ISSN: 1528-0020 | |||||||||