Figure 1: Epithelial LTβR is required for postnatal mTEC development. | Scientific Reports

Figure 1: Epithelial LTβR is required for postnatal mTEC development.

From: Epithelial LTβR signaling controls the population size of the progenitors of medullary thymic epithelial cells in neonatal mice

Figure 1

(a) The distribution of mTECs and cTECs was assessed by immunofluorescence staining of UEA-1 (green) and Ly51 (red) on the thymi from Ltbrfl/flK14Cre and Ltbrfl/+K14Cre mice of 4 weeks old. The scale bar represents 1000 μm. (b) Quantitative analysis of thymic medulla area as determined by UEA-1 staining. Values indicate mean ± SD from at least 3 thymus sections from mice of 4 weeks old. Representative of at least 3 independent experiments. (c) Thymic stromal cells from Ltbrfl/flK14Cre and control mice of different ages as indicated were prepared and then stained with anti-CD45, anti-EpCAM, UEA-1 and anti-Ly51. Within TEC population (CD45−EpCAM+), mTECs and cTECs were identified as UEA-1+Ly51− and UEA-1−Ly51+, respectively. (d,e) The frequency and absolute number of mTECs are shown. (f) The absolute number of cTECs is shown. One representative data was shown as mean ± SD for more than 3 mice each group. All the experiments were repeated more than three times. An unpaired two-tailed Student’s t-test is used: *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001, ****P < 0.0001. cKO, conditional knockout; cTEC, cortical thymic epithelial cell; mTEC, medullary thymic epithelial cell; mTECp, medullary thymic epithelial cell progenitor; PN, postnatal.

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