Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

A Role for CCR9 in T Lymphocyte Development and Migration

2002; American Association of Immunologists; Volume: 168; Issue: 6 Linguagem: Inglês

10.4049/jimmunol.168.6.2811

1550-6606

Shoji Uehara, Alexander Grinberg, Joshua Μ. Farber, Paul E. Love,

Immunotherapy and Immune Responses

Abstract CCR9 mediates chemotaxis in response to CCL25/thymus-expressed chemokine and is selectively expressed on T cells in the thymus and small intestine. To investigate the role of CCR9 in T cell development, the CCR9 gene was disrupted by homologous recombination. B cell development, thymic αβ-T cell development, and thymocyte selection appeared unimpaired in adult CCR9-deficient (CCR9−/−) mice. However, competitive transplantation experiments revealed that bone marrow from CCR9−/− mice was less efficient at repopulating the thymus of lethally irradiated Rag-1−/− mice than bone marrow from littermate CCR9+/+ mice. CCR9−/− mice had increased numbers of peripheral γδ-T cells but reduced numbers of γδTCR+ and CD8αβ+αβTCR+ intraepithelial lymphocytes in the small intestine. Thus, CCR9 plays an important, although not indispensable, role in regulating the development and/or migration of both αβ− and γδ− T lymphocytes.