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Updated: Nov 23, 2025

Author Spotlight: Advancing Thymic Epithelial Cells and T-Cell Research with Human Thymic Organoids
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Author Spotlight: Advancing Thymic Epithelial Cells and T-Cell Research with Human Thymic Organoids

Published on: October 4, 2024

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A 2020 View of Thymus Stromal Cells in T Cell Development

Jianxun Han1, Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker1,2

  • 1Sunnybrook Research Institute, Toronto, Ontario M4N 3M5, Canada; and.

Journal of Immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950)
|January 5, 2021
PubMed

The thymus is an intricate primary lymphoid organ, wherein bone marrow-derived lymphoid progenitor cells are induced to develop into functionally competent T cells that express a diverse TCR repertoire, which is selected to allow for the recognition of foreign Ags while avoiding self-reactivity or autoimmunity. Thymus stromal cells, which can include all non-T lineage cells, such as thymic epithelial cells, endothelial cells, mesenchymal/fibroblast cells, dendritic cells, and B cells, provide signals that are essential for thymocyte development as well as for the homeostasis of the thymic stroma itself. In this brief review, we focus on the key roles played by thymic stromal cells during early stages of T cell development, such as promoting the homing of thymic-seeding progenitors, inducing T lineage differentiation, and supporting thymocyte survival and proliferation. We also discuss recent advances on the transcriptional regulation that govern thymic epithelial cell function as well as the cellular and molecular changes that are associated with thymic involution and regeneration.

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