Cited by 24T-cell and B-cell ImmunologyDevelopmental Biology and Gene RegulationGenomics and Chromatin Dynamics

Global transcriptional analysis of primitive thymocytes reveals accelerated dynamics of T cell specification in fetal stages

Open access
Belyaev, Nikolai N., Biró, Judit, Athanasakis, Dimitrios, Fernandez-Reyes, Delmiro, Potocnik, Alexandre J.·2012·Immunogenetics

Abstract

T cell development constitutes a multistage process allowing the dissection of events resulting in cellular commitment and functional specification in a specialized microenvironment. This process is guided by the appropriate expression of regulatory genetic factors like transcriptional activators or repressors which are, in part, dependent on instructive signals of the microenvironment. To date, it remains unclear whether exactly the same genetic mechanism acts in adult compared to fetal T cell development. In order to directly compare T cell commitment during adult and fetal differentiation, we isolated subsequent stages of intrathymic subpopulations starting with early canonical T cell progenitors up to irreversibly committed T cell precursors. The genome-wide analysis revealed several distinct gene clusters with a specific pattern of gene regulation for each subset. The largest cluster contained genes upregulated after transition through the most primitive pool into the next transitory population with a consistently elevated expression of elements associated with ongoing T cell fate specification, like Gata3 and Tcf7, in fetal progenitors. Furthermore, adult and fetal T cell progenitors occupied distinct "transcriptional territories" revealing a precise land map of the progression to final T cell commitment operating in different developmental windows. The presence and/or elevated expression of elements associated with an ongoing establishment of a T cell signature in the most primitive fetal subset is highly suggestive for an extrathymic initiation of T cell specification and underlines the fundamental differences in fetal versus adult lymphopoiesis.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1007/s00251-012-0620-6

Cites

52 of 53 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Gene expression differences have been noted between normal first-wave fetal and adult pro-T cells in the thymus at corresponding stages which indicate that the fetal program drives accelerated development.

    “Gene expression differences have been noted between the normal first-wave fetal and adult pro-T cells in the thymus at corresponding stages which indicate that the fetal program drives accelerated development (148, 149).”

    From Mechanisms of Action of Hematopoietic Transcription Factor PU.1 in Initiation of T-Cell Development (2019) · cites this paper as [149]

    The Results (Organization of transcriptional territories; page unavailable) report that fetal progenitors at corresponding stages have different gene-expression signatures and are more advanced in T-cell specification than adult progenitors. However, the cells analyzed were from E15.5 fetal thymi; the Results (Phenotypic and proliferative differences; page unavailable) distinguish them from the first wave of thymus-colonizing cells at E12.5. The paper therefore supports accelerated fetal development, but not the claim's specific identification of the compared cells as first-wave cells. (LLM, conf=0.82)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Belyaev, N. N., Biró, J., Athanasakis, D., Fernandez-Reyes, D., & Potocnik, A. J.
Affiliations
National Institute for Medical Research (GB)
Corresponding author
Potocnik, Alexandre J.
Venue
Immunogenetics
Published
2012-05-13
Volume
64
Issue
8
Pages
591-604
ISSN
  • 0093-7711 (ISSN-L)
  • 1432-1211
OpenAlex
W2055448986
Cited by
24
References
53
Citations by year
2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 3 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 2 · 2017: 1 · 2016: 2 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 3
FWCI
0.70
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
cc-by
Locations
  • Immunogenetics (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Immunology and Microbiology › Immunology › T-cell and B-cell Immunology
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Developmental Biology and Gene Regulation
  • Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Molecular Biology › Genomics and Chromatin Dynamics
Keywords
T cell development, thymocytes, transcriptional regulation, GATA3, TCF1, lymphocyte development, gene expression profiling
MeSH terms
Animals, Cell Differentiation, Female, Fetus, Gene Expression Regulation, Hematopoietic Stem Cells, Mice, Inbred C57BL, T-Lymphocytes, Cell Lineage, Gene Expression Profiling, Lymphopoiesis, Microarray Analysis, Mice, Thymocytes

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review