ArticleImmunity2025
Cross-species analyses of thymic mimetic cells reveal evolutionarily ancient origins and both conserved and species-specific elements.
Article in Immunity, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 13 papers.
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Who cites it
13 citing papers in PubMed.
- Review
- Central T cell tolerance from sparse peptide sampling.Science advances · 2026Article
- Article
- Breaking the upper limit of mTEC heterogeneity.Nature immunology · 2026Article
- T cells in acute and chronic myocarditis: from diagnosis to treatment.European heart journal · 2026Review
- Spatial cartography of human thymus enables the geopositioning of lineage transcription factors in rare mimetic thymic epithelial cells.Nature communications · 2026Article
- The relativity of regulatory T cell suppression modes.Frontiers in immunology · 2026Review
- Computational tracking of cell origins using CellSexID from single-cell transcriptomes.Cell reports methods · 2025Article
- Article
- It's Time to Unite: Diversity and Coordination of Thymic Stromal Cells for T Cell Selection and Organ Integrity.Immunological reviews · 2025Review
- Deconstructing the Thymic Microenvironment Through Genesis to Senescence.Immunological reviews · 2025Review
- Thymic Mimetic Cells: Evolutionarily Ancient Mirrors of the Periphery.Immunological reviews · 2025Review
- Thymus research in relation to myasthenia gravis: a new perspective on cell subpopulations and future directions.Frontiers in immunology · 2025Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
12 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Thymic mimetic cells are molecular hybrids between medullary-thymic-epithelial cells (mTECs) and diverse peripheral cell types. They are involved in eliminating autoreactive T cells and can perform supplementary functions reflective of their peripheral-cell counterparts. Current knowledge about mimetic cells derives largely from mouse models. To provide the high resolution that proved revelatory for mice, we performed single-cell RNA sequencing on purified mimetic-cell compartments from human pediatric donors. The single-cell profiles of individual donors were surprisingly similar, with diversification of neuroendocrine subtypes and expansion of the muscle subtype relative to mice. Informatic and imaging studies on the muscle-mTEC population highlighted a maturation trajectory suggestive of skeletal-muscle differentiation, some striated structures, and occasional cellular groupings reminiscent of neuromuscular junctions. We also profiled thymic mimetic cells from zebrafish. Integration of data from the three species identified species-specific adaptations but substantial interspecies conservation, highlighting the evolutionarily ancient nature of mimetic mTECs. Our findings provide a landscape view of human mimetic cells, with anticipated relevance in autoimmunity.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.