Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The thymus (pl.: thymuses or thymi) is a specialized primary lymphoid organ of the immune system.Within the thymus, thymus cell lymphocytes or T cells mature. T cells are critical to the adaptive immune system, where the body adapts to specific foreign invaders.
Thymocytes are classified into a number of distinct maturational stages based on the expression of cell surface markers. The earliest thymocyte stage is the double negative stage (negative for both CD4 and CD8), which more recently has been better described as Lineage-negative, and which can be divided into four substages.
TECs, as a component of the thymus, play a key role in thymocyte development and self-tolerance, so their dysfunction causes many autoimmune diseases, tumors of immunodeficiencies. Most frequently are occurred epithelial tumors established from TEC and thymocytes - thymomas and thymic carcinoma.
Major function of cTECs is to positively select those T cells that are capable to recognize and interact with MHC molecules on their surface [3]. Once T cell precursors enter the thymic cortex, they start their transformation from double negative stages (T cell without surface expression of CD4 and CD8 co-receptors) to a double positive stage (T cell with surface expression of both co ...
In 1989, two scientific groups came up with the hypothesis that the thymus expresses genes which are in the periphery, strictly expressed by specific tissues (e.g.: Insulin produced by β cells of the pancreas) to subsequently present these so-called "tissue-restricted antigens" (TRAs) from almost all parts of the body to developing T cells in order to test which TCRs recognize self-tissues ...
English: ThymiStem in collaboration with animator Cameron Duguid have created a beautiful, hand drawn animation explaining the function of the thymus, an essential organ of the immune system. The video shows how T cells, a type of white blood cell, go through a complex journey in the thymus to become mature immune cells ready to fight off ...
The autoimmune regulator (AIRE) is a protein that in humans is encoded by the AIRE gene. [5] It is a 13kbp gene on chromosome 21q22.3 that encodes 545 amino acids. [6] AIRE is a transcription factor expressed in the medulla [broken anchor] (inner part) of the thymus.
Thymus stromal cells are subsets of specialized cells located in different areas of the thymus. [1] They include all non-T-lineage cells, such as thymic epithelial cells (TECs), endothelial cells, mesenchymal cells, dendritic cells, and B lymphocytes, and provide signals essential for thymocyte development and the homeostasis of the thymic stroma.