Augmentation of pre- and post-thymic T-lymphocyte responses in thymic epithelial cell grafted nude mice.

Thymic epithelial (T-E) cell cultures from newborn mice, grown on dextran beads coated with denatured collagen, were injected subcutaneously into athymic "nude" mice. After 8 weeks, enhanced in vitro migration of T-E cell grafted nude mouse bone marrow cells occurred to thymus supernatants prepared from neonatal thymus cultures. Percent migration was equal to the migration of control AKR bone marrow. In vivo T-lymphocyte responses were also significantly enhanced in T-E cell grafted nude mice as compared to controls.