Thymosin-α1 stimulates maturation of CD34+ stem cells into CD3+4+ cells in an in vitro thymic epithelia organ coculture model

Abstract

The effect of thymosin-α1 on thymopoiesis is largely unknown. Thymosin is found in the cortical and medullary thymic epithelia, as well as in nurse cells; thus, it is hypothesized that thymosin may affect both early and late stage of thymocyte maturation. In this study, the effect of thymosin-α1 on thymopoiesis was determined by coculturing in vitro CD34+ stem cells (SC) with allogeneic cultured thymic epithelia fragments (CTEF) for 1–4 weeks and analyzing T-cell maturation by flow cytometry.Thymosin-α1 significantly enhanced the cell number (e.g., proliferation) of mononuclear cells obtained at 2 and 4 weeks of the SC-CTEF cocultures (P < 0.01 and < 0.05, respectively). In particular, thymosin-α1 stimulated expression of CD3+ cells at 3 and 4 weeks (P < 0.05). The predominant subpopulation increased by thymosin stimulation was single positive mature CD4+ cells, which was confirmed to occur within the SC-CTEF thymic organ tissue by laser confocal immunofluorescence microscopy. Thymosin stimulation tended to enhance IL-7 synthesis, critical cytokine in the maturation of thymocytes.In summary, this is the first study to demonstrate that thymosin-α1 enhanced thymopoiesis of CD34+ stem cells in humans using an in vitro model of differentiation using stem cells and cultured thymic epithelial fragments cocultures. Furthermore, the thymosin significantly increased expression of CD3+4+ T cells.