RESUMO
Lymphocyte proliferation and apoptosis at different stages of the development of the autoimmune disorder in MRL/MpJ-lpr mice was studied. Hematopoietic progenitor colony formation during the course of the disease was characterized. A detectable difference at the level of lymphocyte proliferation, apoptosis, and the relative amount of BFU-E, CFU-GM and CFU-GEMM cell colonies was revealed between healthy young mice and animals spontaneously developing pronounced symptoms of the autoimmune disorder. The quantity of BFU-E and CFU-GEMM colonies was remarkably increases in aged MRL/MpJ-lpr mice even before clinical manifestation of the disease (proteinuria). An elevated number of CFU-GEMM was accompanied by a striking increase in their size. The study of hematopoietic disturbances in autoimmune MRL/MpJ-lpr mice may be very useful for understanding the mechanism of the autoimmune disease development and searching for new strategies of the correction of the autoimmune disorder.