Delivery of T Cell Progenitor Cells as an Approach to Thymic Regeneration

The thymus is a small organ in which thymocytes generated in the bone marrow mature to become T cells of the adaptive immune system. Unfortunately, the thymus atrophies with age, its active tissue largely replaced by fat in most people by age 50 or so. Thereafter the adaptive immune system declines into immunosenescence and inflammaging, deprived of a sufficiently large supply of reinforcement cells. Given the importance of the immune system to health, in matters including tissue maintenance, resistance to infection, suppression of cancer, and more, regeneration of the thymus must be an important component of any serious effort to rejuvenate the elderly. Numerous approaches have been proposed, shown to work in mice, and some even attempted or demonstrated in humans, but this isn't yet a solved problem.

One important class of approach to thymic regeneration is the delivery of cells that will home to the thymus. These cells can in principle be delivered via simple intravenous injection, rather than requiring a much more invasive introduction into the thymus directly. Once in the thymus they either directly assist in building new tissue, or deliver signals that encourage native stem cells to stop slacking and regenerate the thymus. An example of the type is the delivery of epithelial progenitor cells, demonstrated to produce thymic growth in mice a few years ago. Another example, as outlined in today's open access paper, is to deliver cells that are somewhere in the linea...

Source: Fight Aging! - October 7, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs