Pezzano M, Li Y, Yang Y M, Guyden J
Department of Biology, City College of New York, New York 10031.
Cell Immunol. 1991 Apr 1;133(2):434-45. doi: 10.1016/0008-8749(91)90116-s.
Thymic nurse cells (TNCs) are stromal elements that contain between 20 and 200 T cells within their cytoplasm. Because of this unique feature they are believed to play a role in thymocyte development. Unfortunately, it has been difficult to obtain pure TNCs in quantities sufficient for extensive evaluation of their thymic function. As a result, only a limited amount of information is available that characterizes TNCs or the T cell population(s) found within their cytoplasm. We have now used SV40 to infect and immortalize TNCs from C57BL/6 mice. SV40-transformed TNCs were found to specifically bind and internalize cells from an immature thymocyte line isolated in our laboratory. These results describe a method of obtaining pure populations of TNCs for future studies of their thymic function, and suggest that binding to specific subpopulations of lymphoblasts may be necessary for internalization.
胸腺哺育细胞（TNCs）是一种基质成分，其细胞质中含有20至200个T细胞。由于这一独特特征，人们认为它们在胸腺细胞发育中发挥作用。不幸的是，很难获得足够数量的纯TNCs来广泛评估其胸腺功能。因此，关于TNCs或其细胞质中发现的T细胞群体的特征信息非常有限。我们现在利用SV40感染来自C57BL/6小鼠的TNCs并使其永生化。发现SV40转化的TNCs能特异性结合并内化我们实验室分离的一种未成熟胸腺细胞系的细胞。这些结果描述了一种获取纯TNCs群体以用于其胸腺功能未来研究的方法，并表明与淋巴母细胞的特定亚群结合可能是内化所必需的。
