Gut cryptopatches: direct evidence of extrathymic anatomical sites for intestinal T lymphopoiesis.
Athymic cytokine receptor gamma chain mutant mice that lack the thymus, Peyer's patches, cryptopatches (CP), and intestinal T cells were reconstituted with wild-type bone marrow cells. Bone marrow-derived TCR(-) intraepithelial lymphocytes (IEL) first appeared within villous epithelia of small intestine overlying the regenerated CP, and these TCR(-) IEL subsequently emerged throughout the epithelia. Thereafter, TCR(+) IEL increased to a comparable number to that in athymic mice and consisted of TCRgammadelta and TCRalphabeta IEL. In gut-associated lymphoid tissues of wild-type mice, only CP harbored a large population of c-kit(high)IL-7R(+)CD44(+)Thy-1(+/-)CD4(+/-)CD25(low/-)alpha(E) beta(7)(-)Lin(-) (Lin, lineage markers) lymphocytes that included cells expressing germline but not rearranged TCRgamma and TCRbeta gene transcripts. These findings provide direct evidence that gut CP develop progenitor T cells for extrathymic IEL descendants.
Suzuki
K
K
Department of Microbiology, Keio University School of Medicine, Tokyo 160-8582, Japan.
Oida
T
T
Hamada
H
H
Hitotsumatsu
O
O
Watanabe
M
M
Hibi
T
T
Yamamoto
H
H
Kubota
E
E
Kaminogawa
S
S
Ishikawa
H
H
D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000276:immunology; D019070:Cell Lineage / Q000276:immunology*; D018928:Immunity, Mucosal; D007422:Intestines / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*; D051379:Mice; D008819:Mice, Nude; D009154:Mutation; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology / Q000276:immunology*