| First Author | Buono M | Year | 2016 |
| Journal | Nat Cell Biol | Volume | 18 |
| Issue | 2 | Pages | 157-67 |
| PubMed ID | 26780297 | Mgi Jnum | J:274571 |
| Mgi Id | MGI:6200835 | Doi | 10.1038/ncb3299 |
| Citation | Buono M, et al. (2016) A dynamic niche provides Kit ligand in a stage-specific manner to the earliest thymocyte progenitors. Nat Cell Biol 18(2):157-67 |
| abstractText | Thymic T cell development is initiated from bone-marrow-derived multi potent thymus-seeding progenitors. During the early stages of thymocyte differentiation, progenitors become T cell restricted. However, the cellular environments supporting these critical initial stages of T cell development within the thymic cortex are not known. Here we use the dependence of early, c-Kit-expressing thymic progenitors on Kit ligand (KitL) to show that CD4(-)CD8(-)c-Kit(+)CD25(-) DN1-stage progenitors associate with, and depend on, the membrane-bound form of KitL (mKitL) provided by a cortex-specific KitL-expressing vascular endothelial cell (VEC) population. In contrast, the subsequent CD4(-)CD8(-)c-Kit(+)CD25(+) DN2-stage progenitors associate selectively with cortical thymic epithelial cells (cTECs) and depend on cTEC-presented mKitL. These results show that the dynamic process of early thymic progenitor differentiation is paralleled by migration-dependent change to the supporting niche, and identify VECs as a thymic niche cell, with mKitL as a critical ligand. |
