Tolerance induction by thymic medullary epithelium.
- 1 April 1992
- journal article
- research article
- Published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Vol. 89 (7), 2526-2530
- https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.89.7.2526
Abstract
To study the role of thymic medullary epithelium in tolerance induction, the third and fourth branchial clefts of embryos from E mu-Kb transgenic mice, which express the major histocompatibility complex class I antigen H-2Kb exclusively on medullary thymic epithelium, were grafted to athymic nude mice. The grafts differentiated into tissue that morphologically resembled normal thymus. These grafts expressed the H-2Kb antigen appropriately and gave rise to a functional T cell repertoire. In vivo tolerance to H-2Kb disparate skin grafts was invariably found in mice expressing H-2Kb in the medulla or in both medulla and cortex of C57BL/6 branchial cleft-grafted controls. In marked contrast, in vitro cytotoxicity assays demonstrated reactivity toward H-2Kb in the presence of interleukin 2, and limiting-dilution analyses showed similar frequencies of cytolytic T cell precursors reactive to H-2Kb and to third-party stimulators. Medullary epithelium can, therefore, induce split tolerance, in which in vivo tolerance is accompanied by strong in vitro responses in the presence of interleukin 2.Keywords
This publication has 18 references indexed in Scilit:
- Tolerogenicity of thymic epitheliumEuropean Journal of Immunology, 1990
- Selection of the T-cell repertoire in transgenic mice expressing a transplantation antigen in distinct thymus subsetsProceedings Of The Royal Society B-Biological Sciences, 1990
- Developmental Biology of T Cells in T Cell-Receptor Transgenic MiceAnnual Review of Immunology, 1990
- Strong T cell tolerance in parent----F1 bone marrow chimeras prepared with supralethal irradiation. Evidence for clonal deletion and anergy.The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 1990
- Thymic Epithelium Tolerizes for Histocompatibility AntigensScience, 1990
- Clonal deletion and clonal anergy in the thymus induced by cellular elements with different radiation sensitivities.The Journal of Experimental Medicine, 1990
- Restoration of T-cell function in nude mice by grafting the epitheliomesenchymal thymic rudiment from 10-day-old euthymic embryosCell Differentiation and Development, 1989
- Minor but not major histocompatibility antigens of thymus epithelium tolerize precursors of cytolytic T cellsNature, 1986
- Thymic epithelium and the induction of transplantation tolerance in nude miceNature, 1985
- Thymocytes appear to ignore class I major histocompatibility complex antigens expressed on thymus epithelial cellsEuropean Journal of Immunology, 1984