Adoptive transfer of tsk skin fibrosis to +/+ recipients by tsk bone marrow and spleen cells.

The tight skin mouse (Tsk/+) is an autosomal dominant example of inherited fibrosis whose pathogenesis is unclear. Autoimmune phenomena have been described previously. This study demonstrates the adoptive transfer of skin fibrosis to lethally irradiated syngeneic +/+ recipients by the transplantation of both bone marrow and spleen cells. The recipient skin fibrosis was not associated with mast cell proliferation or degranulation as it is in the tsk/+ mouse, representing for the first time a dissociation between mast cells and fibrosis and introducing the potential for direct T cell-fibroblast interactions.