Dramatic swelling and parallel loss of phenotypically defined LMPP and mCP populations, respectively, have been reported for other models of infection [8,9] and inflammatory cytokine stimulation [7], and can be qualitatively identified as an overall shift in the proportion of Sca-1+ cells within the undifferentiated, c-Kit+ lineage− bone marrow cell population (figure 5a). This evidence concerns the gene KIT and infection.