The RhoA- and CDC42-specific exchange factor Dbs promotes expansion of immature thymocytes and deletion of double-positive and single-positive thymocytes.

Specific members of the Rho family of GTPases exert unique influences on thymocyte proliferation, differentiation and deletion. Dbs is a guanine nucleotide exchange factor which is expressed throughout thymocyte development and is able to activate the Rho family GTPases CDC42, RhoA and RhoG. Transgenic mice expressing an activated form of Dbs had increased numbers of double-negative thymocytes. The Dbs transgene promoted expansion of double-negative thymocytes in the absence of pre-TCR, but had no effect on pre-TCR-dependent differentiation of double-negative thymocytes into double-positive thymocytes. Transgenic double-positive thymocytes were proliferative in vivo, but were also susceptible to apoptosis in vivo and in vitro. The transgenic single-positive thymocytes had attenuated proliferative responses following TCR ligation, and were depleted rather than expanded during culture in the presence of anti-CD3. When expressing a positively selectable TCR, transgenic double-positive thymocytes were increased in number and activated, but the output of single-positive thymocytes was reduced. Transgenic double-positive thymocytes were acutely sensitive to deletion by TCR ligation in vivo. These results indicate that activation of Dbs has the potential to promote proliferation throughout thymocyte development, but also sensitizes double-positive and single-positive thymocytes to deletion.