Abstract
IT is accepted that the polycystic organ, composed of branching ducts and differentiating during the first month of postnatal life into a system of interconnected cysts and acinar arrangements of serous and mucoid cells and containing almost no lymphoid cells, represents the dysgenetic thymus of the nude homozygote mouse1,2. No epithelial cystic cells and no cells with specific inclusions which may be the cellular source of the thymic factors affecting pathways for differentiation of T lymphocytes, were found in the polycystic organ3,4. The nude mouse has, however, not only the prethymic cells capable of differentiating into T cells in a thymic graft from an euthymic donor5, but also surprising numbers of θ-positive cells in the spleen6. It is suggested that these T cells may leak across the placenta from the euthymic mother into the nude foetus, may differentiate under the influence of the maternal thymic hormone, or may acquire their T-cell properties by some kind of non-thymic induction7.
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References
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HOLUB, M., ROSSMANN, P., TLASKALOVA, H. et al. Thymus rudiment of the athymic nude mouse. Nature 256, 491–493 (1975). https://doi.org/10.1038/256491a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/256491a0
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