LYMPHOCYTE SUBSETS AND EXPRESSION OF DIFFERENTIATION MARKERS IN BLOODAND LYMPHOID ORGANS OF RHESUS-MONKEYS

Rhesus macaques are invaluable experimental animals in biomedical rese arch, Using three color flow cytometry, we screened anti-human antibod ies for crossreactivity with macaque cells in order to determine the d istribution of functionally important lymphocyte subsets in blood, lym ph nodes (LN), and spleen, NK-cells are almost completely absent in LN , The percentage of B-cells expressing CD80, CD86, and the level of ex pression of CD20 is higher in blood than in LN, In contrast, a higher proportion of B-cells in LN stains positive for CD21 and CD35, Whereas the number of CD29hi expressing T-cells is lower, CD69 is expressed o n more T-cells in LN than in blood, About one-third of CD8+ T-cells in blood are CD28-, a subset with a unique pattern of antigen expression which cannot be found in LN, In contrast to humans, a relatively high proportion of T-cells in blood also express the co-stimulatory molecu les CD80 and CD86, With increasing age, the proportion of B-cells in b lood declines, whereas the percentage of T-cells rises, In addition, t he proportion of CD29hi expressing T-cells increases among both the CD 4+ and CD8+ subsets. (C) 1997 Wiley-Liss, Inc.