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C Parra, E Roldan and JA Brieva
Servicio de Inmunologia, Hospital Ramon y Cajal, Madrid, Spain.
Despite the relatively early reconstitution of blood B-lymphocyte counts
observed in patients treated with bone marrow transplantation (BMT), these
patients undergo a prolonged phase of humoral immunodeficiency. Adhesion
molecules perform relevant functions in many cell types. The present study
examines the expression of several adhesion molecules on human B
lymphocytes newly formed after BMT. Blood B cells from 38 patients were
studied by flow cytometry and three-color analysis. Blood CD5- B
lymphocytes obtained at an early stage after BMT (2 to 4 months) showed a
markedly low expression of the adhesion molecules CD54, CD44, CD11a, and
CD62L. However, these cells exhibited a normal expression of other
molecules including CD29, CD19, CD20, and DR. This deficiency was
progressively corrected, reaching normal levels in the late post-BMT period
(12 to 15 months). In contrast, CD54, CD44, CD11a, and CD62L expression on
the patients' CD5+ B lymphocytes was found to be consistently normal.
Deficient adhesion molecule expression on CD5- B cells in the early
post-BMT period was similarly observed in patients treated with either an
allo-BMT (n = 24) or an auto-BMT (n = 14). Because the post-BMT period
mimics normal ontogeny, adhesion molecule expression was also investigated
in cord-blood B lymphocytes. Cord-blood CD5- B lymphocytes, in contrast to
CD5+, also expressed CD54, CD44, CD11a, and CD62L at levels much lower than
those found in normal adults. Present data suggest that progressive
expression of CD54, CD44, CD11a, and CD62L seems to be a part of the
maturational program of CD5- B lymphocytes during both post-BMT and normal
development periods. This observation may help to explain the humoral
immunodeficiency observed in both conditions.
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| Copyright © 1996 by American Society of Hematology Online ISSN: 1528-0020 | |||||||||