Phenotypic and functional maturation of TCR gammadelta cells in the human thymus

In contrast to thymic differentiation of TCR alphabeta cells, differentiation stages of TCR gammadelta cells are largely unknown. This report shows that CD1, a known marker of immature TCR alphabeta thymocytes, was expressed on some postnatal TCR gammadelta thymocytes. Only CD1+ TCR gammadelta thymocytes expressed recombination-activating gene-1 mRNA, and they were shown to differentiate into CD1- TCR gammadelta thymocytes. Functionally, sorted CD1- TCR gammadelta thymocytes proliferated in the presence of immobilized anti-CD3 Ab plus exogenous rIL-2 or rIL-15. Interestingly, in contrast to CD1- TCR alphabeta cells, CD1- TCR gammadelta thymocytes also proliferated extensively when cultured with exogenous rIL-2 or rIL-15 alone. FACS analysis as well as reverse transcription-PCR analysis showed that only CD1- TCR gammadelta thymocytes expressed IL-2Rbeta protein and mRNA. The differential expression of maturation markers, such as CD27, CD45RO, and CD45RA, as a function of expression of CD1 was similar in TCR gammadelta and TCR alphabeta thymocytes. An important exception is the expression of CD4 and CD8. Whereas TCR alphabeta thymocytes are mainly CD4-CD8 double positive at the immature CD1+ stage and CD4 or CD8 single positive at the mature CD1- stage, CD1(bright) TCR gammadelta thymocytes all expressed CD4, but only some of them expressed CD8. Some CD1- TCR gammadelta thymocytes also expressed CD8, but were negative for CD4. Collectively, our data clearly show that CD1 is a useful marker to distinguish immature human TCR gammadelta thymocytes from functional mature gammadelta cells based on recombination-activating gene-1 expression, in vitro differentiation, and phenotypic and functional characteristics.