Biochemical and immunological differentiation of human thymocytes induced by thymic hormones

Changes in levels of purine degradative enzymes have been shown to occur during T-cell maturation in both rats and humans with a fall in adenosine deaminase (ADA) and a rise in purine nucleoside phosphorylase (PNP) and 5'-nucleotidase (5'NT) activities. We have investigated the effects of four thymic factors: thymosin fraction 5 (TMS-F5); thymosin alpha 1 (TMS-alpha 1); thymopoietin pentapeptide (TP-5); and thymic conditioned medium (CM) on TdT activity, purine enzyme levels and the phenotypic markers OKT3 (a marker for mature T cells) and NA1/34 (which reacts with immature cortical thymocytes) in human thymocytes and in the lymphoid leukaemic cell lines RPMI-8402 and JM1 (derived from Thy-ALL). All four thymic factors caused one or more maturation change in human thymocytes, e.g. TMS-F5 caused a significant increase in OKT3 expression, TMS-alpha 1 a fall in TdT and ADA activities and a rise in OKT3-positive cells, TP-5 an increase in PNP and CM a rise in 5'NT activity. TMS-F5 also caused a marked elevation of 5'NT in both the T lymphoblastic lines (P less than 0.001). On the other hand the non-physiological phorbol ester, 12-O-tetradecanoyl phorbol acetate (TPA), a tumour promotor with potency of inducing differentiation in some leukaemic cell lines, induced changes in both normal thymocytes and in the leukaemic line JM1 were inconsistent with maturation, e.g. a fall in the percentage of OKT3 cells. These observations suggest that maturation of normal thymocytes might proceed stepwise, each step requiring at least one of the thymic hormones. Although thymosin also induces differentiation changes in a malignant lymphoid line, the pattern of these differs from that induced in their normal counterparts.