Rojas-Espinosa O, Segura R M, Rodriguez K W, Reyes-Maldonado E, Paredes P A
Department of Immunology, Escuela Nacional de Ciencias Biologicas, Instituto Politecnico, Mexico, D.F., Mexico.
Int J Lepr Other Mycobact Dis. 1999 Mar;67(1):46-51.
We have studied the susceptibility to infection by Mycobacterium lepraemurium (MLM) of a nude, hypothymic, CD1-derived, spontaneous mouse mutant called "et" because of its extraterrestrial appearance. We found that despite their hypothymia, et/et mice were not more susceptible to infection by MLM than their euthymic et/+ counterparts. Infection of both et/et and et/+ mice with 50 x 10(6) bacilli by the intraperitoneal route led only to a mild infection with low levels of antimycobacterial antibodies and a small number of lesions. These lesions were indicative of reactive hepatitis and hyaline perisplenitis with lymphoid hyperplasia. Some small bacilliferous granulomas were also observed at the end of the experiment (5 months of infection). CD1 mice behave in a rather "resistant" manner to the infection by MLM. It is clear that the nu gene is not necessarily linked to the thymus defect, and it is also clear that the hypothymia of et/et mice does not obviously affect their general cell-mediated immune competence.
我们研究了一种名为“et”的裸、胸腺发育不全、源自CD1的自发小鼠突变体对鼠麻风杆菌（MLM）感染的易感性，因其外形像外星人。我们发现，尽管et/et小鼠胸腺发育不全，但它们对MLM感染的易感性并不比胸腺正常的et/+同窝小鼠更高。通过腹腔途径用50×10⁶个杆菌感染et/et和et/+小鼠，仅导致轻度感染，抗分枝杆菌抗体水平低，病变数量少。这些病变提示反应性肝炎和伴有淋巴样增生的透明性脾周炎。在实验结束时（感染5个月）也观察到一些小的含杆菌肉芽肿。CD1小鼠对MLM感染表现出相当“抗性”的方式。显然，nu基因不一定与胸腺缺陷相关联，同样明显的是，et/et小鼠的胸腺发育不全并未明显影响其总体细胞介导的免疫能力。
