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An in vivo assay for thymus-homing bone marrow cells

Nature volume 293, pages 151–154 (1981)Cite this article

Abstract

The bone marrow of adult mammals contains a reservoir of cells capable of undergoing thymic maturation to T lymphocytes1. These ‘pre-thymic’ cells represent a subpopulation of bone marrow cells and have been characterized by their ability to repopulate the thymus of irradiated hosts2, by their expression of thymic markers following exposure in vitro to various thymic inducer polypeptides such as thymopoietin3 and by their capacity to augment the response of mature T cells to mitogens4. The relationship between thymus-homing cells and ‘pre-thymic’ cells capable of expressing thymic surface marker and/or T-cell function has been difficult to establish because of the long assay interval in thymus-homing experiments1,2. We have now developed an in vivo assay for the study of thymic homing and early differentiation of direct fluorescence-labelled5 bone marrow cells injected into irradiated mice. Our results show that (1) the observed migration is not random but specific, (2) the number of migrants is proportional to the number of input cells, (3) the thymus-homing bone marrow cells are not susceptible to prior in vitro treatment with anti-Thy-1 serum plus complement (C), and (4) the surface membrane Thy-1 antigen begins to be expressed as early as 3 h after the reconstitution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Experimental Oncology, Department of Pathology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, California, 94305, USA

    I. L. Weissman

  2. Institut Gustave Roussy, INSERM U.66, Villejuif, France

    F. Lepault

Authors
  1. F. Lepault
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  2. I. L. Weissman
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Lepault, F., Weissman, I. An in vivo assay for thymus-homing bone marrow cells. Nature 293, 151–154 (1981). https://doi.org/10.1038/293151a0

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