Wick G, Oberhuber G
Eur J Immunol. 1986 Jul;16(7):855-8. doi: 10.1002/eji.1830160723.
The possibilities for functional analysis of thymic nurse cells (TNC) have so far been hampered by the low yield of these cells by means of gradient centrifugation and their fragility preventing purification by a fluorescence-activated cell sorter. Furthermore, they are extremely unstable in cell culture. Here we present functional data obtained by the analysis of single TNC in an avian system: the chicken with its extramaternal embryonic development prompted us to use the chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) pock formation assay to investigate the possible graft-vs.-host reactivity (GVHR) of TNC lymphocytes (TNC-L). The CAM assay proved to be an optimal and unique "cell culture" system for the investigation of the functional characteristics of TNC. Our data show that TNC-L, unexpectedly, are able to exert a GVHR on allogeneic CAM with the very high efficiency of 1/13 as compared to thymocytes of the same donors showing a GVHR efficiency of 1/350. TNC-L are even able to induce GVH-like reactions in syngeneic combinations, while thymocytes and peripheral blood lymphocytes from the same donors always remain negative.
迄今为止，胸腺哺育细胞（TNC）功能分析的可能性受到以下因素的阻碍：通过梯度离心法获取这些细胞的产量较低，且其脆弱性使其无法通过荧光激活细胞分选仪进行纯化。此外，它们在细胞培养中极其不稳定。在此，我们展示了通过对禽类系统中的单个TNC进行分析所获得的功能数据：鸡具有体外胚胎发育过程，这促使我们使用绒毛尿囊膜（CAM）痘疱形成试验来研究TNC淋巴细胞（TNC-L）可能的移植物抗宿主反应（GVHR）。CAM试验被证明是研究TNC功能特性的最佳且独特的“细胞培养”系统。我们的数据表明，出乎意料的是，与相同供体的胸腺细胞相比，TNC-L能够以1/13的极高效率对同种异体CAM发挥GVHR作用，而相同供体的胸腺细胞显示的GVHR效率为1/350。TNC-L甚至能够在同基因组合中诱导GVH样反应，而来自相同供体的胸腺细胞和外周血淋巴细胞始终呈阴性。
