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Understanding The Interactions Of Developing Thymocytes And Antigen Presenting Cells In The Thymic Medulla, Justin Shaun Arnold Perry

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Various thymic APC subsets have been invoked in deletional tolerance and Treg cell induction, but previous studies either assessed total T cell numbers or used TCR transgenic lines, obscuring roles that individual thymic APC subsets might serve for particular antigen-specific T cell populations. Utilizing T cell receptor sequencing, we found that medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) and bone marrow-derived (BM) APCs delete or select unique conventional and Treg cell TCR repertoires, demonstrating distinct roles for these APCs. We show that BM APCs and mTECs each contribute to Aire-dependent T cell tolerance development, albeit through either cooperative or autologous antigen presentation …