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Nutritional Immunology

Biotin Deficiency Blocks Thymocyte Maturation, Accelerates Thymus Involution, and Decreases Nose-Rump Length in Mice¹

Departamento de Inmunología, Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, México

²To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ortsoto{at}servidor.unam.mx.

Biotin deficiency in experimental animals causes low body weight as well as several phenomena suggestive of an altered immune system. We reported previously that chronic biotin deficiency in mice decreases body weight and alters the number and proportion of lymphocyte subpopulations in the spleen. To further characterize the effects of biotin deficiency, we studied in detail the maturation of thymocytes and the status of biotin in the thymus, as well as the body length of biotin-deficient mice. Male Balb/cAnN mice were fed for up to 20 wk either standard control diet, a biotin-deficient diet, or a biotin-sufficient diet. At different times, nose-rump length, weight of the thymus, spleen and liver, total number of cells in the spleen and thymus, pyruvate carboxylase (PC) and propionyl CoA carboxylase (PCC) activity in thymus cells, and the proportion of distinct thymocyte subsets were determined. These variables did not differ between mice fed the control and biotin-sufficient diets. In contrast, biotin-deficient mice differed from biotin-sufficient mice in all of the analyzed variables. PC and PCC specific activities of thymocytes of mice fed the biotin-depleting diet decreased during the first 4 wk by 84.5%. The maturation of thymocytes in biotin-deficient mice was arrested at the double-negative stage. Our results suggest that biotin deficiency in mice causes an accelerated involution of the thymus and decreases nose-rump length, but these effects do not correlate in magnitude or in temporality with the sharp decrease in the activity of the biotin-dependent carboxylases. As such, the possibility that the aforementioned effects are not related directly to the prosthetic function of biotin should be considered.

KEY WORDS: • biotin deficiency • thymocyte maturation • propionyl CoA carboxylase • pyruvate carboxylase • thymus involution

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