Leaving no one behind: tracing every human thymocyte by single-cell RNA-sequencing

Springer Science and Business Media LLC - Tập 43 - Trang 29-43 - 2021
Yujun Deng1, Hong Chen1, Yang Zeng2,3, Keyue Wang1, Huiyuan Zhang1, Hongbo Hu1
1Department of Rheumatology and Immunology and State Key Laboratory of Biotherapy, West China Hospital, and West China School of Basic Medical Sciences & Forensic Medicine, Sichuan University, and Collaborative Innovation Center for Biotherapy, Chengdu, China
2State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, Fifth Medical Center of Chinese PLA General Hospital, Beijing, China
3State Key Laboratory of Proteomics, Academy of Military Medical Sciences, Academy of Military Sciences, Beijing, China

Tóm tắt

The thymus is the primary organ for T-cell development, providing an essential microenvironment consisting of the appropriate cytokine milieu and specialized stromal cells. Thymus-seeding progenitors from circulation immigrate into the thymus and undergo the stepwise T-cell specification, commitment, and selection processes. The transcriptional factors, epigenetic regulators, and signaling pathways involved in the T-cell development have been intensively studied using mouse models. Despite our growing knowledge of T-cell development, major questions remain unanswered regarding the ontogeny and early events of T-cell development at the fetal stage, especially in humans. The recently developed single-cell RNA-sequencing technique provides an ideal tool to investigate the heterogeneity of T-cell precursors and the molecular mechanisms underlying the divergent fates of certain T-cell precursors at the single-cell level. In this review, we aim to summarize the current progress of the study on human thymus organogenesis and thymocyte and thymic epithelial cell development, which is to shed new lights on developing novel strategies for in vitro T-cell regeneration and thymus rejuvenation.

Tài liệu tham khảo

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