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The golden anniversary of the thymus

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 11, pages 489–495 (2011)Cite this article

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A Corrigendum to this article was published on 18 November 2011

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Abstract

The immunological function of the thymus was first documented 50 years ago by using neonatally thymectomized mice, while studying its role in virus-induced leukaemia. Since then, an enormous wealth of reports has helped to define the importance of this primary lymphoid organ. In this article, I summarize the key advances that have led to our current knowledge of the functions of the thymus and its T cells in immunity.

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Figure 1: Thymus grafts in neonatally thymectomized mice.
Figure 2: An experiment demonstrating the existence and function of B and T cells.
Figure 3: The state of knowledge at the end of 1968.
Figure 4: Major events in thymus cell differentiation.

Change history

  • 18 November 2011

    In the original version of this article, in the section under the title “Lymphocyte subsets” on page 491, a key reference was unintentionally omitted. At the end of the sentence “T cells that help B cells to produce antibody (T helper (TH) cells) generally bear the CD4 marker (originally known as L3T4), whereas those that serve cytotoxic functions (cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs)) are usually characterized by the presence of CD8 molecules (originally known as LYT2 and LYT3)” the following reference should have been cited: Kisielow, P. et al. Ly antigens as markers for functionally distinct subpopulations of thymus-derived lymphocytes of the mouse.

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to many of my colleagues, including L. Wu, K. Shortman, T. Basten and, in particular, J. Sprent, for fruitful suggestions.

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  1. Jacques F. A. P. Miller is at the Department of Immunology, The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, 1G Royal Parade, Parkville, Victoria 3050, Australia. miller@wehi.edu.au,

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Miller, J. The golden anniversary of the thymus. Nat Rev Immunol 11, 489–495 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri2993

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