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Updated: Oct 23, 2026

Competitive Homing Assays to Study Gut-tropic T Cell Migration
Published on: March 1, 2011
Effect of some steroid hormones on the homing affinity of lymph node cells and monocytes
Abstract:
The selective homing of labelled cells from lymph nodes and peritoneal exudate to lymph nodes and spleens is strongly inhibited after an in vivo administration of steroid hormones, cyproterone acetate, hydrocortisone acetate and hydrocortisone succinate. At the same time the number of lymphocytes and monocytes is greatly reduced in the peripheral blood. This decrease and changes in recirculation of lymphocytes and monocytes are due not to the lysis of cells but to an altered distribution of them in the body and an increased trapping in the bone marrow. The values in the peripheral blood picture are very rapidly reconstituted after the level of the soluble, short-term acting steroid--hydrocortisone succinate--in the body had decreased, and the transferred labelled cells re-enter the lymph nodes while their number in bone marrow is reduced. The altered distribution of cells in the body that is obviously not advantageous for the immune reactions may be one of the causes of the immunosuppressive effect of the steroids.
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