Mice carrying the nude mutation (nu/nu) lack a functioning thymus and do not contain detectable levels of immunocompetent T cells. We now report that nu/nu mice to have lymphocytes which can be activated in vivo by heterologous erythrocytes and a Lyt-1 T cell-derived factor (interleukin 2) to generate T helper cells. Thus, a lymphokine is described which is able to restore in vivo T helper cell immunocompetence of nu/nu mice. The data may suggest that nu/nu mice contain a low number of T lymphocytes influenced by the cystic remnant of the nu/nu thymus anlage. Alternatively, the data imply that interleukin 2 circumvents the requirement of a thymus during ontogeny of T lymphocytes.
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Stötter et al. (1980) studied this question.
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