Fig. 8

Migratory cDCs and macrophages are more efficient than pDCs for clonal deletion, a process accentuated on a Ltα^−/− background. a Experimental setup: Ltα^−/− recipients were injected  with cell-sorted cDCs, pDCs or macrophages from Ccr2^RFP/+ heterozygous mice. The thymic localisation of these cell types was analysed three days later on thymic sections. b Thymic sections were stained with antibodies against the medulla specific marker K14 (magenta) and CD11c (green), BST-2 (green) or F4/80 (green). Adoptively transferred RFP⁺ cells were detected in red. m and c denote the medulla and the cortex, respectively. The graph shows the ratio of medullary vs. cortical density of adoptively transferred cells. Twenty-five sections derived from two mice for each genotype were quantified for each condition. Scale bar: 100 µm. c CCR2 and MHCII in BM-derived cDCs, pDCs and macrophages from WT mice were analysed by flow cytometry. Histograms show the MFI values of CCR2 and MHCII expression normalised to the FMO value of each population analysed. Data are representative of two independent experiments (n = 3 mice per group and per experiment). FMO fluorescence minus one, MFI mean fluorescence intensity. d Experimental setup: AT of purified OVA_323–339-loaded BM-derived cDCs, pDCs or macrophages into OTII-Rag2^−/− or OTII-Rag2^−/−xLtα^−/− recipients. Clonal deletion was analysed 3–5 days after AT. e Numbers of total thymic cells, DP and Vβ5⁺Vα2⁺CD4⁺ SP cells were analysed for each condition. UT untreated OTII-Rag2^−/− mice. Data are representative of three independent experiments (n = 4 mice per group and per experiment). MΦ macrophage. Error bars show mean ± SEM, *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001, ****p < 0.0001 using unpaired Student’s t-test for b, two-tailed Mann–Whitney test for c and one-tailed Mann–Whitney test for e