Nature Immunology
4, 866 - 873 (2003)
Published online: 17 August 2003; | doi:10.1038/ni965
Efficient thymic immigration of B220+ lymphoid-restricted bone marrow cells with T precursor potentialColin H Martin1, 5, Iannis Aifantis1, 2, 5, M Lucila Scimone3, Ulrich H von Andrian3, Boris Reizis4, Harald von Boehmer1
& Fotini Gounari11
Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Boston, Massachusetts, 02115, USA. 2
Department of Medicine, Section of Rheumatology, University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois 60637, USA. 3
Department of Pathology, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. 4
Department of Genetics and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA. 5
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Correspondence should be addressed to Harald von Boehmer harald_von_Boehmer@dfci.harvard.eduUsing a human CD25 reporter transgene controlled by regulatory sequences from the gene encoding pre-T cell receptor  , we identified a common lymphocyte precursor (CLP-2) population that, in contrast to the previously identified CLP-1 population, was c-Kit-B220+. In short-term culture, the CLP-2 could be derived from the CLP-1 subset, and contained cells that in clonogenic assays were assessed to be bipotent precursors of T and B cells. Intravenous injection of bone marrow cells yielded a selective accumulation of CLP-2 thymic immigrants that in thymic organ culture generated mature  T cells. Although the CLP-2 subset may represent the most differentiated population with T cell potential before commitment to the B cell lineage, other subsets of thymic immigrants capable of generating T cells may exist.
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-controlled reporter gene
