Restoration of impaired immune functions in aging animals. VI. Differential potentiating effect of 2-mercaptoethanol on young and old murine spleen cells.

The differential effect of 2-mercaptoethanol (2-ME) on spleen and bone marrow cells of young and old mice was determined in vitro. Both the ability of spleen cells to proliferate and to generate Ig-secreting cells and the capacity of bone marrow cells to generate myeloid colonies were assessed. All three activities assessed in both young and old mice were enhanced by the presence of 2-ME, but a differential effect with respect to age was noted in only one. This was the polyclonal activating antibody response to bacterial lipopolysaccharide (LPS) in which 2-ME enhanced young spleen cells to a greater extent than old spleen cells, although their mitogenic responses to LPS were enhanced to the same extent. The ability of 2-ME to enhance old spleen B cells to proliferate but not differentiate in their response to LPS would suggest that aging alters certain subpopulations of spleen cells, some of which are sensitive and others insensitive to the potentiation effects of 2-ME. The enhancing action of 2-ME on the proliferative activity of LPS-stimulated young spleen cells was reduced drastically by decreasing the number of T cells by prior treatment of spleen cells with anti-T cell reagent. The proliferative activity was then brought back to normal pretreatment level by adding enriched T cells. Therefore it would appear that regulatory T cells are the target of the enhancing action of 2-ME. The failure of old spleen cells to respond vigorously to the polyclonal activating action of LPS and 2-ME individually and in combination would indicate that age-related alterations may be taking place in the B cells and/or the regulatory cells. Young-old spleen cell mixture study indicates that there are regulatory cells in old spleen cells which can inhibit B cell differentiation but not B cell proliferation.