Genetic influence on immune phenotype revealed strain-specific variations in peripheral blood lineages

Abstract

Inbred mouse strains are routinely used as genetically defined animal models for studying a wide assortment of biological and pathological processes, including immune system function. However, no studies have presented large-scale data on the immune cell populations among the inbred strains in physiological conditions. Here we present a systematic, quantitative analysis of peripheral blood cell phenotypes of 30 mouse strains assessed by flow cytometry. This cohort of mice represents a wide range of genetic origins and includes most of the strains used in genetic, physiological, and immunological studies. We evaluated the relative percentages of peripheral blood leukocyte subtypes (lymphocytes, granulocytes, and monocytes) and lymphocyte subpopulations (CD4+ T, CD8+ T, B220+ B, and natural killer cells) of mature (6-mo-old) mice. Our comprehensive study demonstrated: 1) marked differences in the relative proportions of blood cell populations among the strains at this age, 2) considerable variation of each immune trait with more than twofold difference between strains with the highest and the lowest trait values, and 3) haplotype analysis revealed a strong correlation between eosinophil percentage and a single region on chromosome 14 containing two candidate genes. The strain differences described here provide important information for researchers applying immunophenotyping of peripheral blood in immunological and genetic studies. The data from this study are available as part of the Mouse Phenome Database at http://www.jax.org/phenome.

Repetitive Immunization Breaks Tolerance to Type XVII Collagen and Leads to Bullous Pemphigoid in Mice

“…In SJL/J mice, incidence of immunizationinduced EAE is significantly higher in female mice. This observation is paralleled by elevated levels of circulating CD4 + T cells in female, as compared with male SJL/J mice (40). Interestingly, castration of SJL/J male mice leads to an increase in EAE severity.…”

Environmental Enrichment Alters Splenic Immune Cell Composition and Enhances Secondary Influenza Vaccine Responses in Mice

“…In contrast, the above studies that found increased corticosterone concentrations in EE-caged mice used C57BL/6 and C3H/eB strains. It will be interesting to use other strains of laboratory mice in our standardized approach to EE, both to determine whether it is an effective tool for corticosterone reduction across genetic strains and to address the high degree of variability that exists in immune phenotype across strains (41).…”

Instruments in Biotechnology and Medicine

“…In addition to biotechnology, there are also numerous applications in medicine, for example, blood analysis [286,287], bone marrow diagnostics [288,289], immune phenotyping [290,291], and AIDS research [292]. Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) Fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) is a special form of in situ hybridization, a molecular method to detect nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) in tissues, cells, or metaphase chromosomes by fluorescence.…”