The role of CD45+CD4+CD3- cells in lymphoid organ development.

In the last 10 years the continuing search for gene function has yielded many mutant mice that unexpectedly showed a complete lack of lymph nodes and/or Peyer's patches. With the realization that all these functionally highly diverse genes are involved at some point in the development of lymphoid organs, the challenge now is to assign a function to the molecules involved in lymphoid organ development. It will be important to determine the sequence of molecular events and assign this to the cellular events that lead to an accumulation of hematopoietic cells in one location, ultimately forming an organized lymphoid organ. Here we will focus on CD45+CD4+CD3- cells that are the early colonizing cells in lymph nodes and Peyer's patches and develop a hypothetical model of their contribution to the creation of organized lymphoid structures.