Journal
CELLS
Volume 9, Issue 10, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/cells9102226
Keywords
thymic epithelial cells; thymocyte education; regulatory T-cells; Eph; ephrins
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Funding
- Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities [RTI2018-093938-B-I00]
- Carlos III Health Institute [RD16/0011/0002]
- Regional Government of Madrid [S2017/BMD-3692]
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Intimate interactions between thymic epithelial cells (TECs) and thymocytes (T) have been repeatedly reported as essential for performing intrathymic T-cell education. Nevertheless, it has been described that animals exhibiting defects in these interactions were capable of a proper positive and negative T-cell selection. In the current review, we first examined distinct types of TECs and their possible role in the immune surveillance. However, EphB-deficient thymi that exhibit profound thymic epithelial (TE) alterations do not exhibit important immunological defects. Eph and their ligands, the ephrins, are implicated in cell attachment/detachment and govern, therefore, TEC-T interactions. On this basis, we hypothesized that a few normal TE areas could be enough for a proper phenotypical and functional maturation of T lymphocytes. Then, we evaluated in vivo how many TECs would be necessary for supporting a normal T-cell differentiation, concluding that a significantly low number of TEC are still capable of supporting normal T lymphocyte maturation, whereas with fewer numbers, T-cell maturation is not possible.
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