Role of thymic epithelial cells in alpha beta vs gamma delta T cell development

초록

Role of thymic epithelial cells in alpha beta vs gamma delta T cell differentiation. Moon Gyo Kim Biological sciences, Inha University Thymic epithelial cells (TEC) in the microenvironment plays critical roles during thymic development for thymocyte precursors to gain specificity and functionality. The thymic microenvironment is specifically compartmentalized into subcapsule, cortex, medulla, and corticomedullary junction and involved in various aspects of thymic differentiation processes including  and T cell lineage specification, selection, as well as migration. It is well studied that the mainstream (DN, DP, SP) depend on the interactions with subcapsular, cortical, medullary TEC subsets for their survival, differentiation, and selections. However, requirement of TECs for T cell lineage specification and differentiation is still elusive. Here, we discuss the role of TEC subsets for  and T cell development by using new mouse models that can undergo inducible specific TEC ablation. Ablation was achieved by using the transgene comprised of the TSCOT promoter, the reporter EGFP, and a suicide gene nitroreductase (NTR). Two different lengths of the TSCOT promoter directed the expression of EGFP and NTR to different TEC compartments with some overlap, which resulted in ablation of specific subsets of TEC in each line. Interestingly, experiments using FTOC and RTOC in conjunction with TEC ablation showed the segregation of fetal  and T lineage commitment as well as early thymocyte differentiation, suggesting a distinct role of specific TEC subsets during T cell development.