Single-cell immune profiling reveals thymus-seeding populations, T cell commitment, and multilineage development in

Martijn Cordes1,2, Kirsten Canté-Barrett1,3, Erik B van den Akker2,4,5

  • 1Department of Immunology, Leiden University Medical Center, Leiden, Netherlands.

Science Immunology
|November 11, 2022
PubMed

T cell development in the mouse thymus has been studied extensively, but less is known regarding T cell development in the human thymus. We used a combination of single-cell techniques and functional assays to perform deep immune profiling of human T cell development, focusing on the initial stages of prelineage commitment. We identified three thymus-seeding progenitor populations that also have counterparts in the bone marrow. In addition, we found that the human thymus physiologically supports the development of monocytes, dendritic cells, and NK cells, as well as limited development of B cells. These results are an important step toward monitoring and guiding regenerative therapies in patients after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.