A new strategy for treatment of autoimmune diseases in chimeric resistant MRL/lpr mice

A new strategy for the treatment of autoimmune diseases in chimeric resistant MRL/lpr mice is established. The strategy includes injection of cyclophosphamide (CY), fractionated irradiation (5 Gy 3 2), bone grafts (to recruit stromal cells), and two transplantations of whole bone marrow cells (WBMCs) from allogeneic normal C57BL/6 mice (CY/2X/ Bone/2BMT). MRL/lpr mice, thus treated, survived more than 40 weeks (1 mouse survived for G40 weeks, 7 for G50 weeks, and 4 for G60 weeks after these treatments). Immu-nohistological studies showed that the mice were com-pletely free from both lymphadenopathy and autoimmune diseases such as systemic lupus erythematosis and rheuma-toid arthritis. The levels of autoantibodies (IgM/IgG rheuma-toid factors and IgM/IgG anti-ssDNA antibodies [Abs]) in the treated mice decreased to those in the normal mice. I