E. Martinezcaceres et al., CHARACTERIZATION OF CD34(+) THYMIC STROMAL CELLS LOCATED IN THE SUBCAPSULAR CORTEX OF THE HUMAN THYMUS, Experimental hematology, 26(7), 1998, pp. 588-596
In this paper we report that suspensions of human fetal thymocytes con
tain cells that express high levels of CD34 and Thy-1. These cells wer
e characterized with regard to location within the thymus, phenotype,
and function. Confocal laser scan analysis of frozen sections of fetal
thymus with anti-CD34 and Thy-1 antibodies revealed that the double-l
abeled cells were located in the pericortical area. In addition, it wa
s found that the CD34(+)Thy-1(+) cells lacked CD45 and CD50, indicatin
g that these cells are not of hematopoietic origin; this was confirmed
by the finding that these cells could be cultured as adherent cells i
n a medium with cholera toxin and dexamethasone, but failed to grow in
mixtures of hematopoietic growth factors. Further analysis indicated
that most cultured CD34(+)Thy-1(+) cells expressed cytokeratin (CK) 14
but lacked CK 13, suggesting that these cells are immature epithelial
cells. Cultured CD34(+)Thy-1(+) cells were able to induce differentia
tion of CD1(-)CD34(+)CD3(-)CD4(-)CD8(-) thymic precursors into CD4(+)C
D8(+) cells in a reaggregate culture in the absence of exogenous cytok
ines. The CD4(+)CD8(+) cells that developed in these cultures did not
express CD3, indicating that CD34(+)Thy-1(+) thymic stromal cells are
not capable of completing full T cell differentiation of thymic hemato
poietic progenitor cells.