Limiting dilution analysis of ontogeny of self- and allo-reactive thymocytes of C57BL/6J mouse

In the present study, functional development of mouse fetal through neonatal to adult thymocytes was analyzed by limiting dilution assay (LDA) in terms of allo-reactivity and self-reactivity. Self-reactive PTL-p were always much less than those of allo-reactive PTL-p at all ages examined in this study. These results imply that thymocyte proliferation is not predominantly driven by responses to self antigens in the thymus, and that self-reactive thymocytes do not develop prior to allo-reactive thymocytes during thymic ontogeny. It is unlikely that most of such proliferating, murine early fetal thymocytes are self-reactive; allo-reactive cells are unlikely to have been derived from self-reactive cells during T cell development.