Dynamics of Early T Cells: Prothymocyte Migration and Proliferation in the Adult Mouse Thymus

The object of this review has been to consider precursor cell migration into the normal adult thymus, using the mouse model. We have presented a series of experiments and discussed them in the context of other relevant experiments in the literature. The conclusions, qualified in the text, can be summarized as follows: There is a continual input of precursor cells into the normal undepleted adult thymus. The daily input of precursors under normal circumstances is very low (e.g. several per day). Once a precursor enters the pool of proliferating cells inside the thymus, its proliferation is limited to only several weeks. There is no permanent endogenous stem cell. There are a number of different precursor microenvironments in the thymus with different controls, since the kinetics of early (bone marrow-derived) and late (thymus-derived) precursors is quite different. All of these points require further analysis, and we have presented a minimal model as a basis for further experiment.