Volume 14, No 2, Apr 2004
ISSN: 1001-0602
EISSN: 1748-7838 2018
impact factor 17.848*
(Clarivate Analytics, 2019)
Volume 14 Issue 2, April 2004: 125-133
ORIGINAL ARTICLES
The thymic stromal cell line MTSC4 induced thymocyte apoptosis in a non-MHC-restricted manner
Xue Ying HE1, Juan LI1, Xiao Ping QIAN1, Wen Xian FU1, Yan LI1, Li WU2, Wei Feng CHEN1
1Department of Immunology, Peking University Health Science Center,38 Xueyuan Road, Beijing 100083, China.
2The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute, PO Royal Melbourne Hospital, Victoria 3050, Australia.
Correspondence: Wei Feng CHEN(wfchen@public.bta.net.cn )
Mouse thymic stromal cell line 4 (MTSC4) is one of the stromal cell lines established in our laboratory. While losing the characteristics of epithelial cells, they express some surface markers shared with thymic dendritic cells (TDCs). To further study the biological functions of these cells, we compared the capability of MTSC4 with TDCs in the induction of thymocyte apoptosis, using thymic reaggregation culture system. Apoptosis of thymocytes induced by MTSC4 and TDCs was measured by Annexin V and PI staining and analyzed by flow cytometry. We found that MTSC4 selectively augmented the apoptosis of CD4+8+ (DP) thymocytes. This effect was Fas/FasL independent and could not be blocked by antibodies to MHC class I and class II molecules. In addition, MTSC4 enhanced the apoptosis of DP thymocytes from different strains of mice, which implies that MTSC4-induced thymocyte apoptosis is not mediated by the TCR recognition of self peptide/MHC molecules. In contrast to MTSC4, thymocyte apoptosis induced by TDCs was MHC-restricted. Thus, MHC-independent fashion of stromal-DP thymocyte interaction may be one of the ways to induce thymocyte apoptosis in thymus. Our study has also shown that the interaction of MTSC4 stromal cells and thymocytes is required for the induction of thymocyte apoptosis.
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