Increased erythropoiesis in mice deficient in the Fas pathway.

Legend in A also applies to panels B, D. lpr-Rag1^−/− mice are on the C57BL/6 background (in blue), and are compared with control Rag1^−/− mice on the C57BL/6 background. gld-Rag1^−/− mice are on the Balb/C background (in red), and are compared with control Rag1^−/− mice on the Balb/C background. (A) Hematocrit ( = fraction of the blood volume that is due to red cells) and Plasma Epo of lpr-Rag1^−/−, gld-Rag1^−/− and Rag1^−/− age and strain-matched control mice. M =  males. F =  females. Box and whiskers delineate the central 50% and 90% of readings, respectively. Median is indicated with a horizontal line; arithmetic mean with a ‘+’. Data points correspond to individual mice. Between 11 and 40 mice examined per genotype. *p<0.05, **p<.005, ***p<0005 (ANOVA). (B) Hematocrit vs. plasma Epo in the subset of mice where both values were measured, in the basal state, for lpr-Rag1^−/− and matched Rag1^−/− control mice (left panel), and for gld-Rag1^−/− and matched Rag1^−/− controls (right panel). Data are mean ± sem of ≥16 mice *p≤0.001 (two-tailed t test, unequal variance). (C) Flow cytometric measurement of reticulocyte number. Top: whole blood stained with either DRAQ5 (detects DNA) or thiazole orange (TO, detects both DNA and RNA). Reticulocytes lack a nucleus but retain RNA. They therefore form a DRAQ5-negative, TO-positive population. Bottom panel shows analysis in wild-type (WT) mice either in the basal state or following Epo injection; and in gld-Rag1^−/− and control Rag1^−/− mice. (D) Reticulocyte in lpr-Rag1^−/−, gld-Rag1^−/− and matched Rag1^−/− controls, measured by flow-cytometry ***p<0.0001, two-tailed t-test, unequal variance; ff =  p<0.001, F test.