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The thymus exports long-lived fully committed T cell precursors that can colonize primary lymphoid organs

Nature Immunology volume 7, pages 76–82 (2006)Cite this article

Abstract

Thymic export of cells is believed to be restricted to mature T cells. Here we show that the thymus also exports fully committed T cell precursors that colonize primary lymphoid organs. These precursor cells exited the thymus before T cell receptor rearrangements and colonized lymphoid organs such as the thymus and the gut. Migration of the thymic T cell–committed precursors led to permanent colonization of the gut precursor compartment, improved the capacity of gut precursors to further differentiate into T cells and was sufficient for the generation of 'euthymic like' CD8αα+ intraepithelial lymphocytes. These data demonstrate a new function for the thymus in peripheral seeding with T cell precursors that become long lived after thymus export.

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Figure 1: Cell progeny from neonatal thymus grafts.
Figure 2: Thymus export of committed precursors, and thymocyte progenies in the gut.
Figure 3: Progeny of Rag2−/− thymus grafts cells in the gut.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C. Tanchot and H. Veiga-Fernandes, I. Munitic and A. Freitas for discussions, and J. Lipecka for confocal microscopy. Supported by the Agence Nationale de recherches sur le SIDA (F.L.), the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (F.L.), the Association de la Recherché sur le Cancer (M.L.A.), the Institut Pasteur (J.P.D.S.), Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (J.P.D.S.) and the Ligue contre le Cancer.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U591, Necker Institute, Medical Faculty René Descartes, Paris, 7501S, France

    Florence Lambolez, Marie-Laure Arcangeli, Anne-Marie Joret, Valérie Pasqualetto, Corinne Cordier, Benedita Rocha & Sophie Ezine

  2. Department of Immunology, Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale U668, Pasteur Institute, Paris, 7501S, France

    James P Di Santo

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  1. Florence Lambolez
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Correspondence to Benedita Rocha.

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Lambolez, F., Arcangeli, ML., Joret, AM. et al. The thymus exports long-lived fully committed T cell precursors that can colonize primary lymphoid organs. Nat Immunol 7, 76–82 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni1293

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