Expression of argyrophilic proteins in the nucleolar organizer regions of human thymocytes and thymic epitheliocytes under conditions of coculturing with vilon and epithalon peptides.

Vilon stimulated and Epithalon suppressed the expression of argyrophilic proteins in nucleolar organizer regions of thymocytes and epithelial cells, stimulating or reducing, respectively, the formation, assembly, and transport of ribosomes into the cytoplasm and thus determining the intensity of protein synthesis in these cells. A direct mitogenic effect of Vilon was also revealed: this peptide promoted thymocyte transformation into proliferating blast cells.