The thymus is sensitive to acute insults including infection, as well as to injury from chemotherapy and myeloablative conditioning before hematopoietic cell transplantation. Here, Granadier et al. describe a role for IL-18 in limiting thymic regeneration by stimulating NK cells, which then target thymic epithelial cells.
- David Granadier
- Kirsten Cooper
- Jarrod A. Dudakov