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1: Nat Immunol. 2006 Aug;7(8):843-50. Epub 2006 Jul 9.
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Selection of the cutaneous intraepithelial gammadelta+ T cell repertoire by a thymic stromal determinant.

Lewis JM, Girardi M, Roberts SJ, Barbee SD, Hayday AC, Tigelaar RE.

Department of Dermatology and Yale Skin Disease Research Core Center, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut 06511, USA.

Intraepithelial lymphocytes constitute a group of T cells that express mainly monospecific or oligoclonal T cell receptors (TCRs). Like adaptive TCR alphabeta+ T cells, intraepithelial lymphocytes, a subset enriched in TCR gammadelta+ T cells, are proposed to be positively selected by thymically expressed self agonists, yet no direct evidence for this exists at present. Mouse dendritic epidermal T cells are prototypic intraepithelial lymphocytes, displaying an almost monoclonal TCR gammadelta+ repertoire. Here we describe an FVB substrain of mice in which this repertoire was uniquely depleted, resulting in cutaneous pathology. This phenotype was due to failure of dendritic epidermal T cell progenitors to mature because of a heritable defect in a dominant gene used by the thymic stroma to 'educate' the natural, skin-associated intraepithelial lymphocyte repertoire to be of physiological use.

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PMID: 16829962 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]