Labelling of murine epidermal Langerhans cells with H3-thymidine

Epidermal Langerhans cells may be identified by light microscopy by their strongly positive reaction following incubation for ATPase activity. Intact sheets of epidermis from mice killed at various time intervals following a single pulse label of H3-thymidine were incubated to demonstrate ATPase activity and subsequently processed for autoradiography. In specimens taken one hour after labelling, many basal keratinocytes were labelled but very few ATPase-positive dendritic cells. At subsequent time periods a few pairs of labelled ATPase-positive cells were found but individually labelled cells were not observed. The findings suggest that epidermal Langerhans cells form a very stable (labelling index less than 0.01%) self-replicating population which divides to maintain cell spacing during growth. No evidence was found for migration and interchange of Langerhans cells with the connective tissue, or for an origin of Langerhans cells by transformation of another cell type.