TY  - JOUR
TI  - Regulatory T cells in the establishment and maintenance of self-tolerance: role of the thymic epithelium
AU  - Salaun, Josselyne
AU  - Corbel, Catherine
AU  - Le-Douarin, NicoleM.
T2  - The International Journal of Developmental Biology
AB  - The thymus constitutes the microenvironment for T lymphocyte differentiation and acquisition of self-tolerance. Aiming to specify the contributions of the two essential parts of the thymus, namely hemopoietic and epithelial, we have devised experimental models in birds and mice. Chimeric thymuses, xenogeneic in birds and allogeneic in mice, were constructed early in development. In both models we could demonstrate a critical role of the epithelial component of the thymic stroma in induction and maintenance of self-tolerance. These experiments showed that suppression mechanisms are also implicated in these events, strongly suggesting the existence of regulatory T cells in both models. Before these experiments the control of self-tolerance was usually attributed to suppressive cells. However, as the cell phenotypes were not identified, the role of these cells was disregarded. Numerous studies since our investigations argue in favour of regulatory mechanisms. The work we initiated several years ago represents a contribution to our understanding of the two linked and opposite aspects of immune-responded control, namely self-tolerance and autoimmunity
PY  - 2005
DO  - 10.1387/ijdb.041959js
VL  - 49
IS  - 2-3
SP  - 137
EP  - 142
J2  - Int. J. Dev. Biol.
LA  - en
SN  - 0214-6282
SN  - 1696-3547
UR  - https://ijdb.ehu.eus/article/041959js
Y2  - 2024/05/01/23:05:28
ER  -