Intercellular Protein Transfer from Thymocytes to Thymic Epithelial Cells.
Published online
Journal Article
Promiscuous expression of tissue restricted antigens (TRAs) in medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) is crucial for negative selection of self-reactive T cells to establish central tolerance. Intercellular transfer of self-peptide-MHC complexes from mTECs to thymic dendritic cells (DCs) allows DCs to acquire TRAs, which in turn contributes to negative selection and regulatory T cell generation. However, mTECs are unlikely to express all TRAs, such as immunoglobulins generated only in B cells after somatic recombination, hyper-mutation, or class-switches. We report here that both mTECs and cortical TECs can efficiently acquire not only cell surface but also intracellular proteins from thymocytes. This reveals a previously unappreciated intercellular sharing of molecules from thymocytes to TECs, which may broaden the TRA inventory in mTECs for establishing a full spectrum of central tolerance.
Full Text
- Published version (via Digital Object Identifier)
- Pubmed Central version
- Open Access Copy from Duke
- Link to Item
Duke Authors
Cited Authors
- Wang, H-X; Qiu, Y-R; Zhong, X-P
Published Date
- 2016
Published In
Volume / Issue
- 11 / 3
Start / End Page
- e0152641 -
PubMed ID
- 27022746
Pubmed Central ID
- 27022746
Electronic International Standard Serial Number (EISSN)
- 1932-6203
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
- 10.1371/journal.pone.0152641
Language
- eng
Conference Location
- United States