FLOW CYTOMETRIC ANALYSIS OF LYMPHOCYTES FROM RATS FOLLOWING CHRONIC ETHANOL TREATMENT

The current investigation focused on lymphoid cell populations of adul t male Sprague-Dawley rats fed a total enteral nutrition diet in which ethanol provided 38% of the total calories. Rats received the Nationa l Research Council (NRC) recommended daily intake of nutrients 35 days . An evaluation of lymphocyte populations from peripheral blood demons trated a decrease in the absolute number of B cells (p less than or eq ual to 0.007) and absolute numbers of CD4 T cells (p less than or equa l to 0.06) in the ethanol-treated animals. Spleen and thymus weights w ere significantly reduced (p = 0.0001) in the ethanol-treated rats and the CD4/CD8 ratio of splenic lymphocytes decreased in the ethanol gro up (p less than or equal to 0.03). Thymus T-cell recovery from the eth anol-treated group was significantly reduced with no apparent redistri bution in subset numbers with the exception of a minor, yet significan t, decrease (p less than or equal to 0.05) in the CD4/CD8 ra tie. Thes e data are the first to demonstrate that chronic alcohol intake alters lymphoid cell populations in the peripheral blood and primary organs of the immune systems in the presence of adequate nutrition.