Proliferation of thymic stem cells with and without receptors for interleukin 2. Implications for intrathymic antigen recognition
Abstract
We have tested the dividing cells in the mouse thymus for expression of interleukin 2 (IL-2) receptors (IL-2-R) using the rat monoclonal antibody 7D4. A discrete subpopulation of the lymphoblasts clearly expressed IL-2-R at levels comparable to those on mitogen-activated peripheral T cells. This subpopulation, however, represented a small minority of the proliferating cells. IL-2-R-bearing cells were depleted from the PNA+ (peanut agglutinin) lymphoblast population, which contains the direct precursors of most of the cells in the thymus. The majority of receptor-bearing cells were found in the PNA- lymphoblast population, where they constituted only approximately 12% of the cells. Thus, virtually all the PNA+ and most of the PNA- blast cells were in cycle without detectable IL-2-R expression. This indicates that they were not dividing in response to IL-2, and implies that they were not dividing in response to antigen, but rather to novel thymus-specific mitogenic stimuli. On the other hand, the proliferating cells that do express IL-2-R were enriched 4-5-fold in the rapidly growing neonatal thymus, suggesting that they may also play a key role in T cell development.
Additional Information
© 1985 The Rockefeller University Press. After the Initial Publication Period, RUP will grant to the public the non-exclusive right to copy, distribute, or display the Article under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International license, as described at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode, or updates thereof. Received for publication 2 January 1985 and in revised form 5 February 1985. This research was supported by grants AI 19752 and CA 32911 from the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Public Health Service. J. Lugo was supported by a postdoctoral fellowship from the Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research. S. Krishnan was supported in part by a Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship from the California Institute of Technology. We wish to thank Joseph Trotter, for his valuable help with the DNA content measurements, and Drs. Barry Caplan, Eric Davidson, Lee Hood, Mitchell Kronenberg, and Elias Lazarides for their helpful criticism of this manuscript.Attached Files
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Additional details
- PMCID
- PMC2187600
- Eprint ID
- 74214
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20170210-142226362
- AI19752
- NIH
- CA32911
- NIH
- Jane Coffin Childs Memorial Fund for Medical Research
- Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF)
- Created
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2017-02-11Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-11Created from EPrint's last_modified field