| First Author | Negishi I | Year | 1995 |
| Journal | Nature | Volume | 376 |
| Issue | 6539 | Pages | 435-8 |
| PubMed ID | 7630421 | Mgi Jnum | J:27768 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:75253 | Doi | 10.1038/376435a0 |
| Citation | Negishi I, et al. (1995) Essential role for ZAP-70 in both positive and negative selection of thymocytes. Nature 376(6539):435-8 |
| abstractText | During thymic development, T cells that can recognize foreign antigen in association with self major histocompatibility complex (MHC) are selected for survival (positive selection) and autoreactive T cells are eliminated (negative selection). Both of these selective events are mediated by interaction between the T-cell receptor (TCR) and the peptide-MHC complex. But the signalling pathways that lead to cell survival or to cell death are still unclear. ZAP-70 is a protein tyrosine kinase (PTK) that is associated with the TCR signalling subunits (CD3 and zeta) and is expressed in T cells and natural killer cells. It has been shown that ZAP-70 plays a crucial role in T-cell activation and development. Here we show that mice lacking ZAP-70 had neither CD4 nor CD8 single-positive T cells, but human ZAP-70 reconstituted both CD4 and CD8 single-positive populations. Moreover, ZAP-70-/- thymocytes were not deleted by peptide antigens. Natural killer cell function was intact in the absence of ZAP-70. These data suggest that ZAP-70 is a central signalling molecule during thymic selection for CD4 and CD8 lineage. |
