Derivation of functional thymic epithelial organoid lines from adult murine thymus.
Cell Rep
; 43(4): 114019, 2024 Apr 23.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-38551965
ABSTRACT
Thymic epithelial cells (TECs) orchestrate T cell development by imposing positive and negative selection on thymocytes. Current studies on TEC biology are hampered by the absence of long-term ex vivo culture platforms, while the cells driving TEC self-renewal remain to be identified. Here, we generate long-term (>2 years) expandable 3D TEC organoids from the adult mouse thymus. For further analysis, we generated single and double FoxN1-P2A-Clover, Aire-P2A-tdTomato, and Cldn4-P2A-tdTomato reporter lines by CRISPR knockin. Single-cell analyses of expanding clonal organoids reveal cells with bipotent stem/progenitor phenotypes. These clonal organoids can be induced to express Foxn1 and to generate functional cortical- and Aire-expressing medullary-like TECs upon RANK ligand + retinoic acid treatment. TEC organoids support T cell development from immature thymocytes in vitro as well as in vivo upon transplantation into athymic nude mice. This organoid-based platform allows in vitro study of TEC biology and offers a potential strategy for ex vivo T cell development.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Thymus Gland
/
Organoids
/
Epithelial Cells
/
Forkhead Transcription Factors
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Cell Rep
Year:
2024
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: