Unexpected diversity of the thymic antigen presenting cell network and the implications for T cell development

Mark Chong heads the RNA and T cell Laboratory at St Vincent’s Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia. T cell development has been a main interest of the lab over many years, and like many others in the field, research in the Chong lab has primarily focused on the developing thymocytes. However, thymocytes don’t differentiate in isolation. They do so under the influence of antigen presenting cells (APCs) within the thymus. Unlike the developing thymocytes, our understanding of thymic APCs remains relatively poor. In this seminar, I will be discussing the lab’s recent efforts at characterising the thymic APC network in mouse and human. In particular, I will be discussing previously unknown complexities within the dendritic cell (DC) compartment, the tissue-specification of these subsets in the thymus and their roles in regulating unconventional T cell development. Finally, I will discuss the identification of a novel AIRE and tissue-specific antigen-expressing cell type with transcriptional similarities to DCs.