ArticleImmunity & ageing : I & A2021
Quantification of dendritic cell subsets in human thymus tissues of various ages.
Article in Immunity & ageing : I & A, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed, 8 citations in OpenAlex.
- Thymic APC Networks Orchestrate T-Cell Selection: Mechanisms and Therapeutic Opportunities in Immune Disorders.Immunology · 2026Review
- An in-depth understanding of the role and mechanisms of T cells in immune organ aging and age-related diseases.Science China. Life sciences · 2025Review
- Review
- Network meta-analysis of the molecular mechanisms and signaling pathways underlying alcohol-induced thymic atrophy.Alcohol, clinical & experimental research · 2024Article
- Protective effects ofFrontiers in pharmacology · 2024Article
- Autoimmunity in thymic epithelial tumors: a not yet clarified pathologic paradigm associated with several unmet clinical needs.Frontiers in immunology · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundDendritic cells (DCs) in the thymus are involved in central tolerance formation, but they also have other functions in the thymus, such as pathogen recognition. The density changes of human thymic DCs have been hardly investigated. In this study, human thymus samples of various ages were collected for tissue sectioning and staining. The thymic cortex and medulla area as well as the densities of various subsets of thymic DCs were calculated.
resultsAll common DC subsets were found in the human thymus of various ages. Most DCs had accumulated in the human thymic epithelial space, especially the medulla. We also found that the human thymic cortex had atrophied relatively faster than the medulla, which led to a gradual increase of the area ratio of the medulla to cortex with the increase of age. The densities of DC subsets in the human thymus showed various changes with increasing age, which contributed to the composition changes of DC subsets. The density of plasmacytoid DCs (pDCs) in the human thymus had increased gradually with aging, which suggested that pDCs plays another essential role in the thymus in addition to central tolerance.
conclusionsInconsistent with the shrinking of the epithelial space in the thymus, the densities of DC subsets in the epithelial space of the thymus are maintained at a constant level with aging to preserve highly efficient autoreactive thymocyte screening. An increasing density of the thymic pDCs with aging implies an extra function of DCs in the thymus beyond central tolerance.
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