Why does the thymus involute? A selection-based hypothesis

Trends in Immunology

Volumn 30, Issue 7, 2009, Pages 295-300

  Dowling, Mark R ^a   Hodgkin, Philip D ^a  

^a WALTER AND ELIZA HALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL RESEARCH   (Australia)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; CELL CYCLE REGULATION; CELL DEATH; CELL SURVIVAL; CELLULAR IMMUNITY; EVOLUTIONARY ADAPTATION; HOMEOSTASIS; HUMAN; HYPOTHESIS; INFECTION; LIFESPAN; LYMPHOCYTE PROLIFERATION; MAJOR HISTOCOMPATIBILITY COMPLEX; T LYMPHOCYTE; THYMUS FUNCTION;

ADULT; AGING; ANIMALS; CELL DIFFERENTIATION; EVOLUTION; HOMEOSTASIS; HUMANS; MODELS, IMMUNOLOGICAL; T-LYMPHOCYTES; THYMUS GLAND; YOUNG ADULT;

EID: 67649393344     PISSN: 14714906     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.it.2009.04.006     Document Type: Article

References (51)

1. Miller J.F. Three decades of T-ology. Thymus 16 (1990) 131-142
2. Shortman K., et al. The generation and fate of thymocytes. Semin. Immunol. 2 (1990) 3-12
3. Sprent J., et al. T cell selection in the thymus. Immunol. Rev. 101 (1988) 173-190
4. Jameson S.C. Maintaining the norm: T-cell homeostasis. Nat. Rev. Immunol. 2 (2002) 547-556
5. Starr T.K., et al. Positive and negative selection of T cells. Annu. Rev. Immunol. 21 (2003) 139-176
6. Tosi P., et al. Involution patterns of the human thymus. I Size of the cortical area as a function of age. Clin. Exp. Immunol. 47 (1982) 497-504
7. Steinmann G.G. Changes in the human thymus during aging. Curr. Top. Pathol. 75 (1986) 43-88
8. Douek D.C., et al. Changes in thymic function with age and during the treatment of HIV infection. Nature 396 (1998) 690-695
9. Cunningham C.P., et al. Thymic export in aged sheep: a continuous role for the thymus throughout pre- and postnatal life. Eur. J. Immunol. 31 (2001) 802-811
10. Hale J.S., et al. Thymic output in aged mice. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 103 (2006) 8447-8452
11. Aspinall R., and Mitchell W. Reversal of age-associated thymic atrophy: treatments, delivery, and side effects. Exp. Gerontol. 43 (2008) 700-705
12. Hince M., et al. The role of sex steroids and gonadectomy in the control of thymic involution. Cell. Immunol. 252 (2008) 122-138
13. Aronson M. Hypothesis: involution of the thymus with aging-programmed and beneficial. Thymus 18 (1991) 7-13
14. O'Leary J.J., and Hallgren H.M. Aging and lymphocyte function: a model for testing gerontologic hypotheses of aging in man. Arch. Gerontol. Geriatr. 12 (1991) 199-218
15. Miller J.F. Immunological function of the thymus. Lancet 2 (1961) 748-749
16. Miller J.F. The discovery of thymus function and of thymus-derived lymphocytes. Immunol. Rev. 185 (2002) 7-14
17. George A.J., and Ritter M.A. Thymic involution with ageing: obsolescence or good housekeeping? Immunol. Today 17 (1996) 267-272
18. Tough D.F., and Sprent J. Turnover of naive- and memory-phenotype T cells. J. Exp. Med. 179 (1994) 1127-1135
19. Fulcher D.A., and Basten A. B cell life span: a review. Immunol. Cell Biol. 75 (1997) 446-455
20. McLean A.R., and Michie C.A. In vivo estimates of division and death rates of human T lymphocytes. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 92 (1995) 3707-3711
21. Tanchot C., and Rocha B. The organization of mature T-cell pools. Immunol. Today 19 (1998) 575-579
22. Asquith B., et al. Lymphocyte kinetics: the interpretation of labelling data. Trends Immunol. 23 (2002) 596-601
23. Ernst B., et al. The peptide ligands mediating positive selection in the thymus control T cell survival and homeostatic proliferation in the periphery. Immunity 11 (1999) 173-181
24. Dowling, M.R. and Hodgkin, P.D. Modelling naive T-cell homeostasis: consequences of heritable cellular lifespan during ageing. Immunol. Cell Biol. (in press)
25. Dowling M.R., et al. Modelling cell lifespan and proliferation: is likelihood to die or to divide independent of age?. J. R. Soc. Interface 2 (2005) 517-526
26. Surh C.D., and Sprent J. T-cell apoptosis detected in situ during positive and negative selection in the thymus. Nature 372 (1994) 100-103
27. Hao Y., et al. The clone size of peripheral CD8 T cells is regulated by TCR promiscuity. J. Exp. Med. 203 (2006) 1643-1649
28. Rocha B., and von Boehmer H. Peripheral selection of the T cell repertoire. Science 251 (1991) 1225-1228
29. Tanchot C., and Rocha B. Peripheral selection of T cell repertoires: the role of continuous thymus output. J. Exp. Med. 186 (1997) 1099-1106
30. Gett A.V., and Hodgkin P.D. A cellular calculus for signal integration by T cells. Nat. Immunol. 1 (2000) 239-244
31. Hodgkin P.D. Quantitative rules for lymphocyte regulation: the cellular calculus and decisions between tolerance and activation. Tissue Antigens 66 (2005) 259-266
32. Mason D. A very high level of crossreactivity is an essential feature of the T-cell receptor. Immunol. Today 19 (1998) 395-404
33. Mason D. Some quantitative aspects of T-cell repertoire selection: the requirement for regulatory T cells. Immunol. Rev. 182 (2001) 80-88
34. Harrison L.C., et al. Type 1 diabetes: lessons for other autoimmune diseases?. J. Autoimmun. 31 (2008) 306-310
35. Rose N., and Mackay I. The Autoimmune Diseases. 4th edn (2006), Academic Press
36. Akbar A.N., et al. The dynamic co-evolution of memory and regulatory CD4+ T cells in the periphery. Nat. Rev. Immunol. 7 (2007) 231-237
37. Kovaiou R.D., et al. Age-related changes in immunity: implications for vaccination in the elderly. Expert Rev. Mol. Med. 9 (2007) 1-17
38. Yager E.J., et al. Age-associated decline in T cell repertoire diversity leads to holes in the repertoire and impaired immunity to influenza virus. J. Exp. Med. 205 (2008) 711-723
39. Aspinall R. T cell development, ageing and Interleukin-7. Mech. Ageing Dev. 127 (2006) 572-578
40. Bonhoeffer S., et al. Quantification of cell turnover kinetics using 5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine. J. Immunol. 164 (2000) 5049-5054
41. Arstila T.P., et al. A direct estimate of the human alphabeta T cell receptor diversity. Science 286 (1999) 958-961
42. Casrouge A., et al. Size estimate of the alpha beta TCR repertoire of naive mouse splenocytes. J. Immunol. 164 (2000) 5782-5787
43. Blow N. DNA sequencing: generation next-next. Nat. Methods 5 (2008) 267-274
44. Smith D.R., et al. Rapid whole-genome mutational profiling using next-generation sequencing technologies. Genome Res. 18 (2008) 1638-1642
45. Marrack P., et al. Homeostasis of alpha beta TCR+ T cells. Nat. Immunol. 1 (2000) 107-111
46. Boyman O., et al. Cytokines and T-cell homeostasis. Curr. Opin. Immunol. 19 (2007) 320-326
47. Freitas A.A., and Rocha B. Population biology of lymphocytes: the flight for survival. Annu. Rev. Immunol. 18 (2000) 83-111
48. Murray J.M., et al. Naive T cells are maintained by thymic output in early ages but by proliferation without phenotypic change after age twenty. Immunol. Cell Biol. 81 (2003) 487-495
49. Dutilh B.E., and de Boer R.J. Decline in excision circles requires homeostatic renewal or homeostatic death of naive T cells. J. Theor. Biol. 224 (2003) 351-358
50. Ribeiro R.M., and Perelson A.S. Determining thymic output quantitatively: using models to interpret experimental T-cell receptor excision circle (TREC) data. Immunol. Rev. 216 (2007) 21-34
51. Thomas-Vaslin V., et al. Comprehensive assessment and mathematical modeling of T cell population dynamics and homeostasis. J. Immunol. 180 (2008) 2240-2250