Submitted October 21, 2008
Accepted January 19, 2009
Quantifying the development of the peripheral naive
CD4+ T cell pool in humans
Iren Bains, Rustom Antia, Robin Callard, and Andrew J. Yates*
Immunobiology Unit, Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom
Department of Biology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, United States
* Corresponding author; email: ayates2{at}emory.edu.
What are the rules that govern a naive T cell's prospects for survival or division following export from the thymus into the periphery? To help address these questions we combine data from existing studies with robust mathematical models to estimate the absolute contributions of thymopoesis, peripheral division and loss or differentiation to the human naive CD4+ T cell pool between the ages of 0-20 years. Despite their decline in frequency in the blood, total body numbers of naive CD4+ T cells increase throughout childhood and early adulthood. Our analysis shows that post-thymic proliferation contributes more than double the number of cells entering the pool each day from the thymus. This ratio is preserved with age; as the thymus involutes, the average time between naive T cell divisions in the periphery lengthens. We also show that the expected residence time of naive T cells increases with time. The naive CD4+ T cell population thus becomes progressively less dynamic with age. Together with other studies, our results suggest a complex picture of naive T cell homeostasis in which population size, time since export from the thymus or time since the last division can influence a cell's prospects for survival or further divisions.
