By Journal of Clinical Investigation, [RxPG] New immune T cells mature in the thymus throughout life, but the aging thymus works less effectively and this is especially problematic in people who are immunocompromised.
In a study appearing online on March 17, in advance of the April 1 print edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Frances Hakim and colleagues from the National Institutes of Health examine the mechanism underlying this age-related alteration in thymic function. The researchers studied thymic size in adults with breast cancer who were recovering from chemotherapy.
They demonstrate that the thymus can continue to grow for over a year after chemotherapy. This is not because the adult thymus is simply being filled back up with T cell precursors, but instead it is actually undergoing a long period of structural regrowth with new T cell generation. This is the first time that the immunocompromised adult thymus has been shown to be able to restore circulating T cell populations to normal levels and has implications for recovery from disease, infection, and chemotherapy.
Publication:
TITLE: Age-dependent incidence, timecourse, and consequences of thymic renewal in adults; April 1 print edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation
On the web:PDF of this article
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AUTHOR CONTACT:
Frances T. Hakim
National Cancer Institute, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, United States
Phone: 301-402-3627; Fax: 301-402-8690; E-mail: [email protected]
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