Strain differences in allele and expression levels of CD72 on B-lymphocytes from NOD, AKR, NON and C57BL/6 mice

The B-lymphocyte marker CD72 has multiple alleles and serves crucial and nonredundant roles in B-cell development and activation. B-lymphocytes play an important role in development of autoimmune diabetes in NOD mice, therefore we examined the patterns of expression of CD72 and its alloantigens on splenic lymphocytes from 4-week-old NOD/LtJ mice. Comparisons of CD72 expression were made between NOD mice and three non-diabetic strains, NON/LtJ mice, C57BL/6J and AKR/J.Use of allele-specific monoclonal antibodies revealed that the previously uncharacterized NON strain expresses either the a or d allele, whereas NOD and AKR mice were confirmed to express the rare c allele. Flow cytometric analysis revealed differential expression between the strains. Whereas NON, C57BL/6 and AKR mice expressed CD72 on 98, 94 and 92% of their B-lymphocytes (CD19+ cells), the NOD mice only expressed this regulatory marker on 78% of their B-lymphocytes. Furthermore, CD72 expression levels on CD72 positive cells were lower in NOD mice than in other three non-diabetic strains. The presence of the CD72c allele, as well as its low level of expression in NOD mice at 4 weeks of age, may be associated with B-lymphocyte hyper-responsiveness and resistance to activation-induced cell death.