The prothymocyte revisited.
The prothymocyte revisited.
复制标题
重新审视前胸腺细胞。
DOI：
10.1007/bf02918579
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发表时间：
1985
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Silverstone,AE
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Silverstone,AE
This minisymposium was prompted by several groups' discovery of the putative T celt receptor protein [1-3], the growing body of evidence that B cell differentiation could be related to specific stages ofimmunoglobulin gene formation by somatic recombination and gene expression [4, 5], and the discovery that the elements for the T cell receptor gene were rearranged to produce a functional expression unit some time in the course of T cell ontogenesis [6-8]. The identification of the entity responsible for specificity in the T cell response at last makes it possible to relate the genesis of the different T cell functions to expression of a protein that must play a role in these functions. The heuristic value of this approach in understanding B cell ontogenesis is well established, but the problems involved in understanding T cell development may prove to be as relatively complex as the search for the T cell receptor. In the early 1970s the study of T cell ontogeny was given a major boost by the work of Boyse and others with the discovery of a functional assay for a population of null cells from spleen and bone marrow committed strictly to express markers characteristic of thymocytes and mature T cells. Despite caveats that in vitro culture conditions may produce unusual expression of some T cell markers [9], the evidence summarized by Boyse [this symposium] is very strong that the cells responding to the in vitro induction assay are indeed precursors of developing thymocytes and mature T cells. The question immediately suggested by the discovery of a recombination of T cell receptor elements to generate a functional gene is whether this recombination is in fact part and parcel of prothymocyte'commitment'. Do either ct-or 13-subunit elements rearrange in bone marrow and spleen stem cells prior to migration to the thymus? Is this rearrangement part of the signal for these cells to go to the thymus? Is, in fact, expression of either or both chains of the T cell receptor protein a sine qua non for the migration of cells to the thymus, where further events occur in the maturation of function as well as, presumably, selection or education to self-recognition and the elimination of autoreactivity? Answers to the above questions must be set within the context of what is known about these committed precursors. Stutman [10]
