Date Thesis Awarded
5-2010
Access Type
Honors Thesis -- Access Restricted On-Campus Only
Degree Name
Bachelors of Science (BS)
Department
Biology
Advisor
Patty Zwollo
Committee Members
Mark H. Forsyth
Matthew J. Wawersik
Louis Rossiter
Abstract
Rainbow trout are farmed worldwide as a popular food source, and represent a critical stage in the evolutionary history of the immune system. Teleosts lack bone marrow, the site of hematopoiesis in mammals. Instead, the anterior kidney of many fish species has been described as the site of early B cell development. This project sought to expand on a previously published model of the B cell populations in trout immune tissues using flow cytometry analysis of the kidney. The model suggests that a maturation gradient exists along the trout kidney, with the earliest B cell precursors in the anterior kidney, and mature B cells residing in the posterior kidney. If the maturation gradient exists, this project hypothesized that detecting B cell populations in the kidney would reveal an inverse relationship between precursor and mature B cell populations along the kidney gradient. Cell size, cell complexity, and antibodies which detect the transcription factors EBF, Pax5, and Xbp-1, as well as anti-IgM and RAG-1 antibodies were used to define precursor and mature B cell populations throughout the kidney of small and large trout. This project confirmed an inverse relationship between the precursor and mature B cell populations along the kidney gradient in large fish, with specialization of the anterior kidney for early B cell development, and the posterior kidney containing many resting mature B cells. Differences were also discovered between large and small fish mature B cell populations and Xbp-1 expression.
Recommended Citation
Mott, Katrina, "Identification of Developing and Mature B Cell Populations and Population Dynamics Along the Kidney Gradient of Oncorhynchus mykiss (Rainbow trout)" (2010). Undergraduate Honors Theses. William & Mary. Paper 707.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/honorstheses/707
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Comments
Thesis is part of Honors ETD pilot project, 2008-2013. Migrated from Dspace in 2016.