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Updated: May 2, 2026

Mouse Naïve CD4+ T Cell Isolation and In vitro Differentiation into T Cell Subsets
Published on: April 16, 2015
Characterization of rat T cell precursors sorted by chemotactic migration toward thymotaxin
M A Deugnier1, B A Imhof, B Bauvois
1Laboratoire de Physiopathologie du Développement CNRS et Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris, France.
An established rat thymic cell line secretes a peptide in the 11 kd range called thymotaxin that attracts a small subset of juvenile rat bone marrow cells via a chemotactic mechanism. The selected cell subset (0.1% of the total bone marrow) is composed of low-density lymphoid cells that do not replicate, and display an immature Thy-1+T-B- phenotype. Thymotaxin-responding cells do not grow in semi-solid cultures under hemopoietic growth factors stimulation, and survive only in coculture with thymic stroma under steroid-free conditions. This stroma mimics the thymic microenvironment and allows a fraction of responding bone marrow cells to acquire T cell differentiation markers and to synthesize transcripts of the TCR alpha and beta chains. Chemotactic migration toward thymic epithelial cell peptides can be used in vitro to sort pre-T cells from the rat bone marrow. The sorted T cell precursors are resting stem cells possibly committed to lymphoid lineage.
An established rat thymic cell line secretes a peptide in the 11 kd range called thymotaxin that attracts a small subset of juvenile rat bone marrow cells via a chemotactic mechanism. The selected cell subset (0.1% of the total bone marrow) is composed of low-density lymphoid cells that do not replicate, and display an immature Thy-1+T-B- phenotype. Thymotaxin-responding cells do not grow in semi-solid cultures under hemopoietic growth factors stimulation, and survive only in coculture with thymic stroma under steroid-free conditions. This stroma mimics the thymic microenvironment and allows a fraction of responding bone marrow cells to acquire T cell differentiation markers and to synthesize transcripts of the TCR alpha and beta chains. Chemotactic migration toward thymic epithelial cell peptides can be used in vitro to sort pre-T cells from the rat bone marrow. The sorted T cell precursors are resting stem cells possibly committed to lymphoid lineage.
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