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How to find your way through the thymus: a practical guide for aspiring T cells

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Abstract

Thymocytes must complete an elaborate developmental program in the thymus to ultimately generate T cells that express functional but neither harmful nor useless TCRs. Each developmental step coincides with dynamic relocation of the thymocytes between anatomically discrete thymic microenvironments, suggesting that thymocytes’ migration is tightly regulated by their developmental status. Chemokines produced by thymic stromal cells and chemokine receptors on the thymocytes play an indispensable role in guiding developing thymocytes into the different microenvironments. In addition to long-range migration, chemokines increase the thymocytes’ motility, enhancing their interaction with stromal cells. During the past several years, much progress has been made to determine the various signals that guide thymocytes on their journey within the thymus. In this review, we summarize the progress in identifying chemokines and other chemoattractant signals that direct intrathymic migration. Furthermore, we discuss the recent advances of two-photon microscopy in determining dynamic motility and interaction behavior of thymocytes within distinct compartments to provide a better understanding of the relationship between thymocyte motility and development.

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Acknowledgments

We thank E. Robey, J. Ross, B. Au-Yeung, and A. Limlander for reading the manuscript and providing comments. Supported by Grant Number K01 AR059754-01 from NIAMS (H.P.) and the Cancer Research Institute (I.D.).

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  1. LSA, Room 479, Department of Molecular and Cell Biology, Division of Immunology and Pathogenesis, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, 94720-3200, USA

    Ivan Dzhagalov

  2. Department of Medicine, Division of Rheumatology, Rosalind Russell Medical Research Center for Arthritis, University of California San Francisco, Box 0795, S-1024, 513 Parnassus, San Francisco, CA, 94143-0795, USA

    Hyewon Phee

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Dzhagalov, I., Phee, H. How to find your way through the thymus: a practical guide for aspiring T cells. Cell. Mol. Life Sci. 69, 663–682 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00018-011-0791-6

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