No / Thymic epithelial cells (TECs) are the main component of the thymic stroma, which supports T-cell proliferation and repertoire selection. Here, we demonstrate that Cbx4, a Polycomb protein that is highly expressed in the thymic epithelium, has an essential and non-redundant role in thymic organogenesis. Targeted disruption of Cbx4 causes severe hypoplasia of the fetal thymus as a result of reduced thymocyte proliferation. Cell-specific deletion of Cbx4 shows that the compromised thymopoiesis is rooted in a defective epithelial compartment. Cbx4-deficient TECs exhibit impaired proliferative capacity, and the limited thymic epithelial architecture quickly deteriorates in postnatal mutant mice, leading to an almost complete blockade of T-cell development shortly after birth and markedly reduced peripheral T-cell populations in adult mice. Furthermore, we show that Cbx4 physically interacts and functionally correlates with p63, which is a transcriptional regulator that is proposed to be important for the maintenance of the stemness of epithelial progenitors. Together, these data establish Cbx4 as a crucial regulator for the generation and maintenance of the thymic epithelium and, hence, for thymocyte development.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:BRADFORD/oai:bradscholars.brad.ac.uk:10454/7222 |
| Date | January 2013 |
| Creators | Liu, B., Liu, Y.F., Du, Y.R., Mardaryev, Andrei N., Yang, W., Chen, H., Xu, Z.M., Xu, C.Q., Zhang, X.R., Botchkarev, Vladimir A., Zhang, Y., Xu, G.L. |
| Source Sets | Bradford Scholars |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Article, No full-text in the repository |
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