BACKGROUND Graves' disease (GD) is commonly associated with other autoimmune conditions, and there is also a rare but well documented association between GD and thymic hyperplasia (TH). It is hard to say the real frequency of this latter association because most cases remain asymptomatic and are consequently not thoroughly investigated. MATERIALS AND METHODS We reviewed the literature on GD-r...

Guinea-pigs were immunized with antigen prepared from calf thymus and muscle, and from guinea-pig thymus, and rats were immunized with antigen prepared from rat thymus and rat muscle. There was an increased incidence of delayed hypersensitivity and circulating thymus antibodies in the immunized guinea-pigs and an increased incidence of thymitis in the immunized guinea-pigs and rats. However, wh...

The thymus is an organ for T lymphocyte maturation and is indispensable for the establishment of a highly developed immune system in vertebrates. In order to genetically dissect thymus organogenesis, we carried out a large-scale mutagenesis screening for Medaka mutations affecting recombination activating gene 1 (rag1) expression in the developing thymus. We identified 24 mutations, defining at...

To seek information on the capacity of mature T cells to migrate to the thymus, mice were injected with Thy-1-marked populations enriched for resting T cells or T blast cells; localization of the donor cells in the host thymus was assessed by staining cryostat sections of thymus and by FACS analysis of cell suspensions. With injection of purified resting T cells, thymic homing was extremely lim...

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the correlation between fluorine-18 fluorodeoxyglucose (FDG) thymic uptake and a normal appearing thymus on CT. Non-attenuation corrected FDG positron emission tomography (PET) data from 94 young persons (mean age 25.4 years, range 18-29 years) with a normal thymus diagnosed on CT were retrospectively evaluated. No subject had clinical symptoms suggesti...

The development of plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDC2) from human CD34(+) stem cells in vivo was studied in RAG-2(-/-) interleukin (IL)-2Rgamma(-/-) mice that lack functional T and B cells and natural killer cells. CD34(+) cells isolated from fetal liver or thymus were labeled with 5- and 6-carboxyfluorescein diacetate succinimidyl ester (CFSE) and were injected into a human thymus grafted subc...

The migration of developing T cells (thymocytes) between distinct thymic microenvironments is crucial for their development. Ex vivo studies of thymus tissue explants suggest two distinct migratory behaviors of thymocytes in the thymus. In the cortex, thymocytes exhibit a stochastic migration, whereas medullary thymocytes show confined migratory behavior. Thus far, it has been difficult to foll...

Although the mechanisms of cross-talk that regulate the hematopoietic and epithelial compartments of the thymus are well established, the interactions of these compartments with the thymic endothelium have been largely ignored. Current understanding of the thymic vasculature is based on studies of adult thymus. We show that the neonatal period represents a unique phase of thymic growth and diff...

Thymus allograft biopsies were performed in athymic infants with complete DiGeorge anomaly after thymus transplantation to assess whether the thymus allograft tissue was able to support thymopoiesis. Forty-four consecutive infants were treated with postnatal cultured thymus allografts. Thirty biopsies and six autopsies evaluating the allograft site were obtained in 33 infants, 23 of whom surviv...

The role of the thymus in the recovery of the sheep erythrocyte response after lethal irradiation has been studied in adult CBA mice with the hemolytic plaque technique of Jerne. This immunological parameter is markedly thymus-dependent. 10 wk after irradiation and after antigenic challenge the thymectomized animal has only one-twentieth to one-fortieth the number of plaque-forming cells as doe...