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Isolation, Identification, and Purification of Murine Thymic Epithelial Cells
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Thymic epithelial cells: working class heroes for T cell development and repertoire selection

Graham Anderson1, Yousuke Takahama

  • 1MRC Centre for Immune Regulation, College of Medical and Dental Sciences, Medical School, University of Birmingham, Birmingham B15 2TT, UK. g.anderson@bham.ac.uk

Trends in Immunology
|May 18, 2012
PubMed

The thymus represents an epithelial-mesenchymal tissue, anatomically structured into discrete cortical and medullary regions that contain phenotypically and functionally distinct stromal cells, as well as thymocytes at defined stages of maturation. The stepwise progression of thymocyte development seems to require serial migration through these distinct thymic regions, where interactions with cortical thymic epithelial cell (cTEC) and medullary thymic epithelial cell (mTEC) subsets take place. Recent work on TEC subsets provides insight into T cell development and selection, such as the importance of tumour necrosis factor (TNF) receptor superfamily members in thymus medulla development, and the specialised antigen processing/presentation capacity of the thymic cortex for positive selection. Here, we summarise current knowledge on the development and function of the thymic microenvironment, paying particular attention to the cortical and medullary epithelial compartments.

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