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Isolation and Ex Vivo Culture of Vδ1+CD4+γδ T Cells, an Extrathymic αβT-cell Progenitor
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Cellular aspects of early T-cell development

K Shortman1

  • 1Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Melbourne, Australia.

Current Opinion in Immunology
|April 1, 1992
PubMed

Although the nature of the precursor cells seeding the thymus is still uncertain, their immediate progeny in the adult murine thymus have now been isolated. These lymphoid-restricted, prothymocyte-like cells express CD4, but neither CD4 nor CD8 seem to be involved in the early steps of T-cell development. Cytokines produced by stromal cells are likely to be involved in intrathymic T-cell development, but interleukin-2 and interleukin-4 do not appear to be required. There is still no satisfactory cell-culture model of intrathymic T-cell development. Current culture systems reflect only fragments of the process, or are models of extrathymic developmental pathways.

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