Induction of Tolerance by Embryonic Thymic Epithelial Grafts in Birds and Mammals
This extract was created in the absence of an abstract.
Excerpt
The thymus plays a decisive role in the ontogeny of T lymphocytes. Hematopoietic cells (HCs) homing to this organ follow two differentiation pathways: one leading to thymocytes and mature T cells that are exported to the periphery, where they carry out cell-mediated immunity, and the other giving rise to macrophages and dendritic cells, residing mainly in the thymic medulla, where they form a sessile stroma, the renewal of which has not been well documented so far. Development of functional T cells in the thymus involves extensive proliferation of T-cell precursors and the acquisition by the differentiating thymocytes of various specific phenotypic markers and the functional reactivities characteristic of mature T cells (Bevan et al. 1976; Teh et al. 1977; Stutman 1978; Zinkernagel and Doherty 1979; Scollay et al. 1984; Kingston et al. 1985; Rothenberg and Lugo 1985; Davis and Bjorkman 1988), It is generally considered that the repertoire of mature...
