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Blood, 15 March 2005, Vol. 105, No. 6, pp. 2410-2414. Prepublished online as a Blood First Edition Paper on October 12, 2004; DOI 10.1182/blood-2004-01-0348.
Submitted January 28, 2004
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle, WA, USA; 2nd Medical School, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic * Corresponding author; email: jstorek{at}ucalgary.ca.
T cells recognizing self-peptides are typically deleted in the thymus by negative selection. It is not known whether T cells against persistent viruses (e.g., herpesviruses) are generated by the thymus (de novo) after the onset of the infection. Peptides from such viruses might be considered by the thymus as self-peptides, and T cells specific for these peptides might be deleted (negatively selected). Here we demonstrate in baboons infected with baboon cytomegalovirus and baboon lymphocryptovirus (Epstein-Barr virus-like virus) that after autologous transplantation of yellow fluorescent protein (YFP)-marked hematopoietic cells, YFP+ CD4 T cells against these viruses were generated de novo. Thus the thymus generates CD4 T cells against not only pathogens absent from the host but also pathogens present in the host. This finding provides a strong rationale to improve thymopoiesis in hematopoietic cell transplant recipients and, perhaps, also in other individuals lacking de novo generated CD4 T cells like AIDS patients and elderly persons.
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