MACROPHAGE AND LYMPHOCYTE-DEPLETED THYMUS RETICULOEPITHELIAL CELL-CULTURES - ESTABLISHMENT AND FUNCTIONAL INFLUENCE ON LYMPHOCYTE-T MATURATION, C-TYPE VIRUS EXPRESSION AND LYMPHOMATOUS TRANSFORMATION INVITRO

Google Scholar
  • 1 January 1981
    • journal article
    • research article
    • Vol. 2  (4-5) , 193-213
Abstract
A method of cultivation was developed that yields thymus reticuloepithelial (TRE) cell monolayers composed almost entirely of epithelial-like cells, with no detectable macrophages or lymphocytes. These cultures show the capacity to induce responsiveness to lectin mitogens in immature thymocytes. Such monolayers induce Thy-1 expression in nude mouse spleen and bone marrow cells. The functional macrophage-lymphocyte depleted TRE monlayers can be cryptically infected by radiation leukemia virus (RadLV). RadLV-infected TRE cells lack the capacity to induce neoplastic transformation in normal weanling and newborn thymocytes. Cultures prepared from C57BL/Ka mice treated with a leukemogenic irradiation course produce a B-fibrotrophic nonleukemogenic virus, and normal thymocytes cocultivated with these monolayers do not undergo in vitro transformation. Evidently TRE monolayers depleted of macrophages and lymphocytes exhibit the functional capacity to induce some of the properties of mature T cells, are infectable by RadLV, are one of the sites for expression of ecotropic virus after leukemogenic fractionated irradiation, and are not capable of transforming normal thymocytes in vitro.