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Development of thymocytes in organ culture: migrant cells with natural killer cell characteristics

M A Skinner1, L Moffatt, J Marbrook

  • 1Department of Immunobiology, School of Medicine, University of Auckland, New Zealand.

Immunology and Cell Biology
|April 1, 1989
PubMed

During organ culture of foetal thymic lobes, up to 5% of the thymic cells migrate out of the lobes and a majority of these have phenotypic characteristics of thymocytes or macrophages. Interleukin-2 (IL-2) increases the number of these migrant cells, and cytotoxic cells can be detected which display natural killer cell surface markers. In contrast, although cytotoxic activity can be detected in cells from adult thymic fragments cultured with IL-2, the cytotoxic activity is not detected with natural killer sensitive target cells. The appearance of natural killer-like cells during the culture of foetal thymic lobes suggests that they are involved in differentiation events which occur at this time in the thymus.

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