| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
|
|
|
|||||||
|
|||||||||
Departments of
*
Medicine,
Immunology,
Pathology, and
§
Community and Family Medicine, Center For AIDS Research, and Human Vaccine Institute, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC 27710; and
¶
Department of Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern School of Medicine, Dallas, TX 75235
The human thymus is required for establishment of the T cell pool
in fetal life, but postnatal thymectomy does not lead to
immunodeficiency in humans. Because thymectomy in humans is performed
for treatment of myasthenia gravis (MG), we have studied patients with
MG for effects of thymectomy on peripheral blood (PB) naive
(CD45RA+, CD62L+) and memory
(CD45RO+) T cells. We have also determined the effect of
thymectomy on levels of PB cells containing signal joint TCR 
excision circles (TRECs), a molecular marker of thymus emigrants that
have divided few times after leaving the thymus. In 17 nonthymectomized
and 26 thymectomized MG patients studied at varying times after
thymectomy (1 day to 41 years), we found no significant mean difference
in PB T cell TREC levels between ages 40 and 80 years. However, both
thymectomized and nonthymectomized MG patients had lower PB T cell TREC
levels than did age-matched normal subjects (p <
0.0001 for both). These data demonstrated that MG itself or treatment
for MG decreased thymopoiesis independent of thymectomy. Next, to
control for disease activity and treatment, we prospectively studied 10
MG patients before and from 27 to 517 days after thymectomy. We found
that thymectomy decreased CD4 or CD8 T cell TREC concentrations most
when thymopoiesis was active before thymectomy (six of six patients),
but had little effect in patients when thymopoiesis was minimal (four
of four patients). In contrast, there was no significant effect of
thymectomy on absolute numbers of naive PB T cells. Thus, in MG,
removal of a thymus with active thymopoiesis resulted in a significant
fall in PB TREC+ T cells
postthymectomy.
This article has been cited by other articles:
|
|
 |
|
  I. Bains, R. Thiebaut, A. J. Yates, and R. Callard Quantifying Thymic Export: Combining Models of Naive T Cell Proliferation and TCR Excision Circle Dynamics Gives an Explicit Measure of Thymic Output J. Immunol., October 1, 2009; 183(7): 4329 - 4336. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 A R Lorenzi, T A Morgan, A Anderson, J Catterall, A M Patterson, H E Foster, and J D Isaacs Thymic function in juvenile idiopathic arthritis Ann Rheum Dis, June 1, 2009; 68(6): 983 - 990. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 S. Kohler and A. Thiel Life after the thymus: CD31+ and CD31- human naive CD4+ T-cell subsets Blood, January 22, 2009; 113(4): 769 - 774. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 J. D. Scandling, S. Busque, S. Dejbakhsh-Jones, C. Benike, M. T. Millan, J. A. Shizuru, R. T. Hoppe, R. Lowsky, E. G. Engleman, and S. Strober Tolerance and Chimerism after Renal and Hematopoietic-Cell Transplantation N. Engl. J. Med., January 24, 2008; 358(4): 362 - 368. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
S A Y Hartgring, J W J Bijlsma, F P J G Lafeber, and J A G van Roon Interleukin-7 induced immunopathology in arthritis Ann Rheum Dis, November 1, 2006; 65(suppl_3): iii69 - iii74. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
C. van den Dool and R. J. de Boer The Effects of Age, Thymectomy, and HIV Infection on {alpha} and beta TCR Excision Circles in Naive T Cells J. Immunol., October 1, 2006; 177(7): 4391 - 4401. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
Y. Matsumoto, H. Matsuo, H. Sakuma, I.-K. Park, Y. Tsukada, K. Kohyama, T. Kondo, S. Kotorii, and N. Shibuya CDR3 Spectratyping Analysis of the TCR Repertoire in Myasthenia Gravis. J. Immunol., April 15, 2006; 176(8): 5100 - 5107. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
 |
|
 C Kayser, F L Alberto, N P da Silva, and L E. Andrade Decreased number of T cells bearing TCR rearrangement excision circles (TREC) in active recent onset systemic lupus erythematosus Lupus, December 1, 2004; 13(12): 906 - 911. [Abstract] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
L. M. Piliero, A. N. Sanford, D. M. McDonald-McGinn, E. H. Zackai, and K. E. Sullivan T-cell homeostasis in humans with thymic hypoplasia due to chromosome 22q11.2 deletion syndrome Blood, February 1, 2004; 103(3): 1020 - 1025. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. Hug, M. Korporal, I. Schroder, J. Haas, K. Glatz, B. Storch-Hagenlocher, and B. Wildemann Thymic Export Function and T Cell Homeostasis in Patients with Relapsing Remitting Multiple Sclerosis J. Immunol., July 1, 2003; 171(1): 432 - 437. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
A. Konno, K. Okada, K. Mizuno, M. Nishida, S. Nagaoki, T. Toma, T. Uehara, K. Ohta, Y. Kasahara, H. Seki, et al. CD8alpha alpha memory effector T cells descend directly from clonally expanded CD8alpha +beta high TCRalpha beta T cells in vivo Blood, December 1, 2002; 100(12): 4090 - 4097. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
R. Bellucci, E. P. Alyea, E. Weller, A. Chillemi, E. Hochberg, C. J. Wu, C. Canning, R. Schlossman, R. J. Soiffer, K. C. Anderson, et al. Immunologic effects of prophylactic donor lymphocyte infusion after allogeneic marrow transplantation for multiple myeloma Blood, May 29, 2002; 99(12): 4610 - 4617. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
P. Ye and D. E. Kirschner Reevaluation of T Cell Receptor Excision Circles as a Measure of Human Recent Thymic Emigrants J. Immunol., May 15, 2002; 168(10): 4968 - 4979. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
B. J. Chen, X. Cui, G. D. Sempowski, M. E. Gooding, C. Liu, B. F. Haynes, and N. J. Chao A comparison of murine T-cell-depleted adult bone marrow and full-term fetal blood cells in hematopoietic engraftment and immune reconstitution Blood, January 1, 2002; 99(1): 364 - 371. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
D. C. Douek, M. R. Betts, B. J. Hill, S. J. Little, R. Lempicki, J. A. Metcalf, J. Casazza, C. Yoder, J. W. Adelsberger, R. A. Stevens, et al. Evidence for Increased T Cell Turnover and Decreased Thymic Output in HIV Infection J. Immunol., December 1, 2001; 167(11): 6663 - 6668. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
|
|
|
|
E. P. Hochberg, A. C. Chillemi, C. J. Wu, D. Neuberg, C. Canning, K. Hartman, E. P. Alyea, R. J. Soiffer, S. A. Kalams, and J. Ritz Quantitation of T-cell neogenesis in vivo after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation in adults Blood, August 15, 2001; 98(4): 1116 - 1121. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
|
|
| HOME | HELP | FEEDBACK | SUBSCRIPTIONS | ARCHIVE | SEARCH | TABLE OF CONTENTS |
