Takeoka Y, Chen S Y, Boyd R L, Tsuneyama K, Taguchi N, Morita S, Yago H, Suehiro S, Ansari A A, Shultz L D, Gershwin M E
Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Clinical Immunology, University of California at Davis, School of Medicine 95616, USA.
Dev Immunol. 1997;5(2):79-89. doi: 10.1155/1997/69270.
It is widely accepted that the thymic microenvironment regulates normal thymopoiesis through a highly coordinated and complex series of cellular and cytokine interactions. A direct corollary of this is that abnormalities within the microenvironment could be of etiologic significance in T-cell-based diseases. Our laboratory has developed a large panel of monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that react specifically with epithelial or nonepithelial markers in the thymus. We have taken advantage of these reagents to characterize the thymic microenvironment of several genetic strains of mice, including BALB/cJ, C57BL/6J, NZB/BlnJ, SM/J, NOD/Ltz, NOD/Ltz-scid/sz, C57BL/6J-Hcphme/Hcphme, and ALY/NscJcl-aly/aly mice, and littermate control animals. We report herein that control mice, including strains of several backgrounds, have a very consistent phenotypic profile with this panel of monoclonal antibodies, including reactivity with thymic epithelial cells in the cortex, the medulla and the corticomedullary junction, and the extracellular matrix. In contrast, the disease-prone strains studied have unique, abnormal staining of thymic cortex and medulla at both the structural and cellular levels. These phenotypic data suggest that abnormalities in interactions between developing thymocytes and stromal cells characterize disease-prone mice.
人们普遍认为，胸腺微环境通过一系列高度协调且复杂的细胞和细胞因子相互作用来调节正常的胸腺生成。由此直接推断，微环境中的异常可能在基于T细胞的疾病中具有病因学意义。我们实验室已开发出一大组单克隆抗体（mAb），它们能与胸腺中的上皮或非上皮标志物特异性反应。我们利用这些试剂对几种基因品系小鼠的胸腺微环境进行了表征，这些小鼠包括BALB/cJ、C57BL/6J、NZB/BlnJ、SM/J、NOD/Ltz、NOD/Ltz-scid/sz、C57BL/6J-Hcphme/Hcphme和ALY/NscJcl-aly/aly小鼠，以及同窝对照动物。我们在此报告，包括几种背景品系的对照小鼠，使用这组单克隆抗体时具有非常一致的表型特征，包括与皮质、髓质和皮质髓质交界处的胸腺上皮细胞以及细胞外基质发生反应。相比之下，所研究的易发病品系在结构和细胞水平上对胸腺皮质和髓质有独特的异常染色。这些表型数据表明，发育中的胸腺细胞与基质细胞之间相互作用的异常是易发病小鼠的特征。
