Natural and induced apoptosis during lymphocyte development in the axolotl.

Lymphocytes apoptosis was characterized in a urodele amphibian, the axolotl, by morphology using electron microscopy and by flow cytometry after propidium iodide staining, as well as by biochemical criteria with the detection of DNA ladders after glucocorticoid treatment. The morphological and biochemical features observed in treated axolotls are in accordance with the criteria of apoptosis found in different models of mammalian lymphocyte programmed cell death. The onset of natural apoptosis was then detected by DNA fragmentation in thymus and in spleen during lymphocyte development and ontogenesis. A typical DNA ladder characteristic of apoptosis is detectable in the thymus as early as 5 months; apoptosis increases and peaks at 8 months, and is no longer detected by 10 months or thereafter. The ability of a superantigen, Staphylococcus aureus enterotoxin B (SEB), to induce T lymphocyte apoptosis in larvae was investigated as well. In vivo exposure of young axolotl larvae to SEB induces, as in mammals, thymocyte apoptosis as indicated by the enhancement of DNA fragmentation. These last results, natural programmed cell death and SEB induced apoptosis during thymic ontogeny, are discussed in correlation with what is known during mammalian thymic selection and apoptosis.