The decline in murine splenic PHA and LPS responsiveness following serial transplantation of young and old bone marrow cells.

ABSTRACT

An analysis was made of the ability of bone marrow cells derived from young (6 months) or old (28 months) murine (A X C57BL/6) donors to differentiate to B and T lymphocytes following serial bone marrow cell transplantations into groups of young syngeneic lethally irradiated recipients. Both number and mitogenic responsiveness of splenic B and T lymphocytes were recorded for recipients of young or old bone marrow cells 9 months following each serial transplant. The data suggests that lymphopoietic stem cells senescence in a manner analogous to that predicted by the clonal succession model of ageing.