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I have worked on several projects in Dr. Knight's laboratory for the past 18 years. The current focus of my work is to determine the mechanism by which B lymphopoiesis is arrested in adult rabbits. I study the potential role of IL-7b, an isoform of IL-7 recently discovered by Susan Kalis, a former student. IL-7b contains an 11 amino acid insertion encoded by a small exon located between exons 2 and 3. We purified recombinant IL-7b from E. coli and from mammalian cells infected with adenovirus expression IL-7b and showed that like IL-7, IL-7b binds to both B and T cells. However, unlike, IL-7, which is required for growth and differentiation of early B and T cell progenitors on OP9 or OP-DL1 stromal cells, respectively, IL-7b does not support this development. We developed antibody specific for IL-7b and I am using this antibody to determine the expression pattern of IL-7b in various lymphoid tissues throughout life. I am currently testing the hypothesis that IL-7b inhibits the capacity of IL-7 to support B lymphopoiesis, and that the arrest in B lymphopoiesis is due to increased expression of IL-7b in bone marrow in adults. |
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