Elevated Cyclic AMP Levels in Mouse Lymphoid Tissue after Stimulation by Cholera Enterotoxin in Vitro

Abstract

Addition of CT to suspensions of thymus, lymph node, spleen, or bone marrow cells in vitro resulted in a marked accumulation of cAMP with peak levels occurring 4-5 hr after incubation of cells with CT. Thymus cells showed the largest increase in cAMP, approximately 40-fold at 10 ng/ml CT. Bone marrow cells accumulated the least cAMP (1.5x), while intermediate levels were observed for spleen and lymph node cells (10-12x). Antiserum to CT prevented stimulation of increased cAMP levels. Repopulation studies using X-irradiated mice also showed that thymus-derived spleen cells accumulated more cAMP/10-7 cells than spleen cells from recipients given spleen or marrow cells. Spleen cells from athymic (nu/nu) mice also responded much less than did spleen cells from normal mice. Thymocytes appeared to bind CT to a greater degree than bone marrow cells. Spleen and lymph node cell suspensions also contained CT-binding cells and the number of CT-binding cells in these peripheral lymphoid tissues appeared approximately equal to the summation of the numbers observed in thymocyte and bone marrow cell suspensions. Stimulation of cAMP in lymphoid cells, especially thymocytes, by CT provides a pharmacological tool to investigate the mechanism and role of this nucleotide in the early events of antibody formation.