Kinetics of In Vivo Proliferation and Death of Memory and Naive CD8 T Cells: Parameter Estimation Based on 5-Bromo-2′-Deoxyuridine Incorporation in Spleen, Lymph Nodes, and Bone Marrow

To study naive and memory CD8 T cell turnover, we performed BrdU incorporation experiments in adult thymectomized C57BL/6 mice and analyzed data in a mathematical framework. The following aspects were novel: 1) we examined the bone marrow, in addition to spleen and lymph nodes, and took into account the sum of cells contained in the three organs; 2) to describe both BrdU-labeling and -delabeling phase, we designed a general mathematical model,...