The Journal of Experimental Medicine
Janeway's Immunobiology 7th Edition
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Published online May 5, 2008
doi:10.1084/jem.20072168
The Journal of Experimental Medicine
The Rockefeller University Press, 0022-1007 $30.00
© 2008 Benz et al.
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ARTICLE

 The stream of precursors that colonizes the thymus proceeds selectively through the early T lineage precursor stage of T cell development

Claudia Benz1, Vera C. Martins1, Freddy Radtke2, and Conrad C. Bleul1

1 Department of Developmental Immunology, Max-Planck-Institute of Immunobiology, 79108 Freiburg, Germany
2 Swiss Institute for Experimental Cancer Research, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausannne, 1066 Epalinges, Switzerland

CORRESPONDENCE Conrad C. Bleul: bleul{at}immunbio.mpg.de

T cell development in the thymus depends on continuous colonization by hematopoietic precursors. Several distinct T cell precursors have been identified, but whether one or several independent precursor cell types maintain thymopoiesis is unclear. We have used thymus transplantation and an inducible lineage-tracing system to identify the intrathymic precursor cells among previously described thymus-homing progenitors that give rise to the T cell lineage in the thymus. Extrathymic precursors were not investigated in these studies. Both approaches show that the stream of T cell lineage precursor cells, when entering the thymus, selectively passes through the early T lineage precursor (ETP) stage. Immigrating precursor cells do not exhibit characteristics of double-negative (DN) 1c, DN1d, or DN1e stages, or of populations containing the common lymphoid precursor 2 (CLP-2) or the thymic equivalent of circulating T cell progenitors (CTPs). It remains possible that an unknown hematopoietic precursor cell or previously described extrathymic precursors with a CLP, CLP-2, or CTP phenotype feed into T cell development by circumventing known intrathymic T cell lineage progenitor cells. However, it is clear that of the known intrathymic precursors, only the ETP population contributes significant numbers of T lineage precursors to T cell development.

Abbreviations used: CLP-2, common lymphoid precursor 2; CTP, circulating T cell progenitor; DN, double negative; EGFP, enhanced GFP; ETP, early T lineage precursor; pIpC, poly(I:C); TMP, thymic multipotent progenitor.


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