The challenge for the development of therapy for autoimmune disorder by the establishment of artificial thymic medullary organ

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As a step toward the establishment of an artificial thymic organ which could contribute to the treatment of autoimmune disease, the differentiation potential of thymic epithelial cells was examined. The objectives of this examination were to understand the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the separate development of the thymic cortical epithelial cell and thymic medullary epithelial cell lineages. We generated mice that express the recombinase Cre instead of β5t, a proteasome subunit that is abundant in thymic cortical epithelial cells and not detected in other cell types, including thymic medullary epithelial cells. By crossing β5t-Cre knock-in mice with loxP-dependent GFP reporter mice, we found that the vast majority of thymic medullary epithelial cells are differentiated fromβ5t-expressing progenitors. These results will help for the understanding of the nature of thymic microenvironment, and will give rational for the development of treatment for autoimmune disease.