Abstract
The immunological function of the thymus was first documented 50 years ago by using neonatally thymectomized mice, while studying its role in virus-induced leukaemia. Since then, an enormous wealth of reports has helped to define the importance of this primary lymphoid organ. In this article, I summarize the key advances that have led to our current knowledge of the functions of the thymus and its T cells in immunity.
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Change history
18 November 2011
In the original version of this article, in the section under the title “Lymphocyte subsets” on page 491, a key reference was unintentionally omitted. At the end of the sentence “T cells that help B cells to produce antibody (T helper (TH) cells) generally bear the CD4 marker (originally known as L3T4), whereas those that serve cytotoxic functions (cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs)) are usually characterized by the presence of CD8 molecules (originally known as LYT2 and LYT3)” the following reference should have been cited: Kisielow, P. et al. Ly antigens as markers for functionally distinct subpopulations of thymus-derived lymphocytes of the mouse.
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to many of my colleagues, including L. Wu, K. Shortman, T. Basten and, in particular, J. Sprent, for fruitful suggestions.
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Miller, J. The golden anniversary of the thymus. Nat Rev Immunol 11, 489–495 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri2993
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nri2993
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