Dynamic changes in epithelial cell morphology control thymic organ size during atrophy and regeneration

Thomas Venables, Ann V. Griffith, Alice DeAraujo and Howard T. Petrie ()
Additional contact information
Thomas Venables: The Scripps Research Institute
Ann V. Griffith: The Scripps Research Institute
Alice DeAraujo: The Scripps Research Institute
Howard T. Petrie: The Scripps Research Institute

Nature Communications, 2019, vol. 10, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: Abstract T lymphocytes must be produced throughout life, yet the thymus, where T lymphocytes are made, exhibits accelerated atrophy with age. Even in advanced atrophy, however, the thymus remains plastic, and can be regenerated by appropriate stimuli. Logically, thymic atrophy is thought to reflect senescent cell death, while regeneration requires proliferation of stem or progenitor cells, although evidence is scarce. Here we use conditional reporters to show that accelerated thymic atrophy reflects contraction of complex cell projections unique to cortical epithelial cells, while regeneration requires their regrowth. Both atrophy and regeneration are independent of changes in epithelial cell number, suggesting that the size of the thymus is regulated primarily by rate-limiting morphological changes in cortical stroma, rather than by their cell death or proliferation. Our data also suggest that cortical epithelial morphology is under the control of medullary stromal signals, revealing a previously unrecognized endocrine-paracrine signaling axis in the thymus.

Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-11879-2 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:10:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-019-11879-2

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-019-11879-2

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().