Abstract
Potentially harmful T cell precursors are removed from the conventional T cell pool by negative selection. This process can involve the induction of apoptosis, anergy, receptor editing or deviation into a regulatory T cell lineage. As such this process is essential for the health of an organism through its contribution to central and peripheral tolerance. While a great deal is known about the process, the precise mechanisms that regulate negative selection are not clear. Furthermore, the signals that distinguish the different forms of negative selection are not fully understood. Numerous models exist with the potential to address these questions in vitro and in vivo. This chapter describes methods of fetal thymic organ culture designed to analyze the signals that determine these unique cell fates.
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Acknowledgements
The authors thank the members of the Daniels and Teixeiro labs for assistance in compiling these protocols. Funding provided by grants from the Missouri Mission Enhancement Fund and University of Missouri Research Board is greatly acknowledged.
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Cunningham, C.A., Teixeiro, E., Daniels, M.A. (2016). FTOC-Based Analysis of Negative Selection. In: Bosselut, R., S. Vacchio, M. (eds) T-Cell Development. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1323. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2809-5_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-2809-5_12
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
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Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-2809-5
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