| The thymus is an important immune organ. T cells differentiate, develop and maturate in the thymus. it can secrete thymus hormone-like substance to regulate the immune system.thymus is one of the organs which first degraded. From the puberty, the thymus gradually begin to degenerate. After middleage, adipose tissues increase in the thymus, with the decrease of lymphopenia, lead ing to the degeneration of the immune function. Therefore, the study of the thymus regeneration to enhance immunity for the research of resistant Aging has been a hot topic recently.In the past decade,with the rapid development of stem cell biology, using natural scaffold of tissues and organs to regenerate organs has achieved some breakthroughs. In this study, we used the decellularized thymus scaffold to establish a regenerate thymus tissue with the simulation method of 3D culture in vivo for the production of T lymphocytes. The experimental animal model in this experiment is KM mice. The thymus tissues were decellularized by TritonX-100. we analysed the biochemical and histological characteristics to determine the optimal decellularizing conditions. Thymus cells the mixture cell of injectied thymus cells and bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells derive d from the same strains were injected into the decellularized thymus ECM and 3D cultured in vitro.The results showed as follows:the 1%TritonX-100 for 10h treatment was the best decellularizing conditions. The decellularized thymus ECM support continuous 3D culture of thymic stromal cells for 45d. The proportion of T cells had nosignificant difference between the cell cultured in the ECM for 10d andnormal thymus cells with FCM analysis. Thymus cells could induce bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells differentiate into T cells during the 3D culture.In summary,the decellularized thymus ECM scaffold can support thymus tissue remodeling in vitro. We believe these results contribute to a better study for the regenerative medicine in future. |
