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Circulating hematopoietic progenitors with T lineage potential

Nature Immunology volume 5, pages 953–960 (2004)Cite this article

Abstract

The thymus is seeded via the blood, but the identity of hematopoietic progenitors with access to the circulation in adult mice is unknown. We report here that the only progenitors in blood with efficient T lineage potential were lineage negative with high expression of stem cell antigen 1 and c-Kit (LSK cells). The blood LSK population, like its counterpart in the bone marrow, contained hematopoietic stem cells and nonrenewing, multipotent progenitors, including early lymphoid progenitors and CD62L+ cells previously described as efficient T lineage progenitors. Common lymphoid progenitors could not be identified in the circulation, suggesting they are not physiological T lineage precursors. We conclude that blood LSK cells are the principal circulating progenitors with T lineage potential.

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Figure 1: Analysis of bone marrow, blood and thymus for LSK cells and CLPs.
Figure 2: T lineage potential of blood populations.
Figure 3: Surface phenotype of bone marrow and blood LSK cells.
Figure 4: Lineage potential and kinetics of LSK populations.
Figure 5: Bone marrow analysis for long-term HSC reconstitution by LSK populations.
Figure 6: Early kinetics of LSK populations.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Spangrude, D. Allman, W. Pear, I. Maillard, R. Gerstein and D. Fonseca for critical comments; and R. Schretzenmair and H. Pletcher of the Abramson Cancer Center Flow Cytometry and Cell Sorting Shared Resource (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) for technical support. Supported by National Institutes of Health (AI059621; T32-AI-055428) and Concern Foundation.

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  1. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, 19104–6160, Pennsylvania, USA

    Benjamin A Schwarz & Avinash Bhandoola

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Correspondence to Avinash Bhandoola.

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Schwarz, B., Bhandoola, A. Circulating hematopoietic progenitors with T lineage potential. Nat Immunol 5, 953–960 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni1101

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