Abstract
Thymic export of cells is believed to be restricted to mature T cells. Here we show that the thymus also exports fully committed T cell precursors that colonize primary lymphoid organs. These precursor cells exited the thymus before T cell receptor rearrangements and colonized lymphoid organs such as the thymus and the gut. Migration of the thymic T cell–committed precursors led to permanent colonization of the gut precursor compartment, improved the capacity of gut precursors to further differentiate into T cells and was sufficient for the generation of 'euthymic like' CD8αα+ intraepithelial lymphocytes. These data demonstrate a new function for the thymus in peripheral seeding with T cell precursors that become long lived after thymus export.
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Acknowledgements
We thank C. Tanchot and H. Veiga-Fernandes, I. Munitic and A. Freitas for discussions, and J. Lipecka for confocal microscopy. Supported by the Agence Nationale de recherches sur le SIDA (F.L.), the Fondation pour la Recherche Médicale (F.L.), the Association de la Recherché sur le Cancer (M.L.A.), the Institut Pasteur (J.P.D.S.), Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale (J.P.D.S.) and the Ligue contre le Cancer.
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Lambolez, F., Arcangeli, ML., Joret, AM. et al. The thymus exports long-lived fully committed T cell precursors that can colonize primary lymphoid organs. Nat Immunol 7, 76–82 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni1293
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ni1293
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