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Formation of Human Thymus Organoids in Three-Dimensional Fibrin Hydrogels
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Organizing the thymus gland

Juan José Muñoz1, Javier García-Ceca, David Alfaro

  • 1Department of Cell Biology, Faculty of Biology, Complutense University, Madrid, Spain.

Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences
|February 25, 2009
PubMed

Eph receptors and their ligands, ephrins, are molecules involved in the morphogenesis of numerous tissues, including the central nervous system in which they play a key role in determining cell positioning and tissue domains containing or excluding nerve fibers. Because common features have been suggested to occur in the microenvironmental organization of brain and thymus, a highly compartmentalized organ central for T cell differentiation, we examined the expression and possible role of Eph/ephrins in the biology of the thymus gland. We reviewed numerous in vivo and in vitro results that confirm a role for Eph and ephrins in the maturation of the thymic epithelial cell (TEC) network and T cell differentiation. Their possible involvement in different steps of early thymus organogenesis, including thymus primordium branching, lymphoid colonization, and thymocyte-TEC interactions, that determine the organization of a mature three-dimensional thymic epithelial network is also analyzed.

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