| First Author | Houston EG Jr | Year | 2009 |
| Journal | J Immunol | Volume | 183 |
| Issue | 11 | Pages | 7244-9 |
| PubMed ID | 19915060 | Mgi Jnum | J:157387 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:4430762 | Doi | 10.4049/jimmunol.0902313 |
| Citation | Houston EG Jr, et al. (2009) MHC drives TCR repertoire shaping, but not maturation, in recent thymic emigrants. J Immunol 183(11):7244-9 |
| abstractText | After developing in the thymus, recent thymic emigrants (RTEs) enter the lymphoid periphery and undergo a maturation process as they transition into the mature naive (MN) T cell compartment. This maturation presumably shapes RTEs into a pool of T cells best fit to function robustly in the periphery without causing autoimmunity; however, the mechanism and consequences of this maturation process remain unknown. Using a transgenic mouse system that specifically labels RTEs, we tested the influence of MHC molecules, key drivers of intrathymic T cell selection and naive peripheral T cell homeostasis, in shaping the RTE pool in the lymphoid periphery. We found that the TCRs expressed by RTEs are skewed to longer CDR3 regions compared with those of MN T cells, suggesting that MHC does streamline the TCR repertoire of T cells as they transition from the RTE to the MN T cell stage. This conclusion is borne out in studies in which the representation of individual TCRs was followed as a function of time since thymic egress. Surprisingly, we found that MHC is dispensable for the phenotypic and functional maturation of RTEs. |
