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Thymic output: a bad TREC record

Nature Immunology volume 4, pages 97–99 (2003)Cite this article

TREC assays are used to detect recent thymic emigrants and quantitate thymic output. However, the longevity of naive T cells combined with T cell division suggest TREC data should be interpreted with caution.

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Figure 1: Schematic representation of changes in TREC levels in response to changes in thymic function or T cell division.
Figure 2: Schematic representation of peripheral blood TREC reconstitution following stem cell transplantation.

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Acknowledgements

We would like to thank H. Schuitemaker for critical reading of the manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Clinical Viro-Immunology, Sanquin Research at CLB and Landsteiner Laboratory, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Mette D. Hazenberg, José A.M. Borghans & Frank Miedema

  2. Theoretical Biology, Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Rob J. de Boer

  3. Department of Human Retrovirology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Frank Miedema

Authors
  1. Mette D. Hazenberg
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  2. José A.M. Borghans
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  3. Rob J. de Boer
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  4. Frank Miedema
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Correspondence to Frank Miedema.

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Hazenberg, M., Borghans, J., de Boer, R. et al. Thymic output: a bad TREC record. Nat Immunol 4, 97–99 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni0203-97

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