T/NK bipotent progenitors in the thymus retain the potential to generate dendritic cells.

We have previously shown that the earliest thymic progenitors retain the potential to generate T and NK cells and that they lose the bipotentiality to give rise to unipotent T and NK progenitors during the progression of intrathymic developmental stages. The present study examines the ability of these thymic progenitors for generation of dendritic cells (DC) with a new clonal assay that is capable of determining the developmental potential for DC in addition to T cells and NK cells. We found that the large majority of the T/NK bipotential progenitors in the earliest population of fetal thymus was able to generate DC. Although the DC potential is lost with the progression of the differentiation stage, some of the T/NK bipotential progenitors still retain their DC potential even at the CD44(+)CD25(+) stage.