T Cell Leakiness in Scid Mice

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Abstract
A variable percentage (~10–20%) of young adult scid mice produce detectable serum Ig, and have been designated “leaky”, or scid Ig+ mice (Bosma et al. 1988). Leakiness appears to be due to a somatic event as scid mice cannot be selectively bred for this phenotype (G. Bosma and M. Bosma, unpublished data). The frequency of scid Ig+ mice increases with age, and mice housed under non-specific-pathogen free (SPF) conditions show a higher incidence of leakiness than SPF mice, suggesting that naturally-occurring antigens play an important role in the expansion of leaky B cell clones. Scid Ig+ mice generally fail to express all of the major serum Ig classes (i.e., IgM, IgG3, IgG1, IgG2a, IgG2b and IgA), and isoelectric focusing of serum Ig light chains indicates only one to seven Ig-producing clones in most mice (Bosma et al. 1988; Gibson et al. 1989).