2023 CiteScore: 0.7
pISSN: 0044-6025
eISSN: 1735-9694
Editor-in-Chief:
Ahmadreza Dehpour, PharmD, PhD
This journal is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
Vol 41, No 2 (2003)
Less than 5% of prenatal thymoctes express HLA-DR before week 12 of gestation. However, the number of HLA-DR- positive cells increases during the late second and third trimesters of development. To determine the role of alpha-smooth muscle actin in fetal thymic HLA-DR signaling in different stages of development we examined and compared the immunohistochemical expression of alpha-smooth muscle actin in the myoid cells of the thymic medulla stroma in the 2 nd, and 3rd trimesters of gestation respectively, over the equivalent expression of the protein in the 1 st trimester, in relation with the appearance of HLA-DR-positive thymocytes. Our results demonstrated a quantitative difference in the second and third trimesters of development concerning the expression of alpha-smooth muscle actin in the stromal myoid cells of the thymic medulla over the equivalent expression of the protein in the first (P<0.0001, t-test). Similar changes in the above period wee found concerning the expression of HLA-DR over the first (P<0.0001, test), suggesting a direct involvement of alpha-smooth muscel acting in the sustainence of HLA-DR reactivity. Our data provide evidence that a contractile microfilament alpha-smooth muscle actin plays a pivotal role in HLA-DR expression, through interaction between medullary stromal cells and thymoctes.
2023 CiteScore: 0.7
pISSN: 0044-6025
eISSN: 1735-9694
Editor-in-Chief:
Ahmadreza Dehpour, PharmD, PhD
This journal is a member of, and subscribes to the principles of, the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).
All the work in this journal are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License. |