Early T-cell progenitors are the major granulocyte precursors in the adult mouse thymus.

The mouse thymus supports T-cell development, but also contains non-T-cell lineages such as dendritic cells, macrophages, and granulocytes that are necessary for T-cell repertoire selection and apoptotic thymocyte clearance. Early thymic progenitors (ETPs) are not committed to the T-cell lineage, as demonstrated by both in vitro and in vivo assays. Whether ETPs realize non-T-cell lineage potentials in vivo is not well understood and indeed is controversial. In the present study, we investigated whether ETPs are the major precursors of any non-T-lineage cells in the thymus. We analyzed the development of these populations under experimental circumstances in which ETPs are nearly absent due to either abrogated thymic settling or inhibition of early thymic development by genetic ablation of IL-7 receptorα or Hes1. Results obtained using multiple in vivo approaches indicate that the majority of thymic granulocytes derive from ETPs. These data indicate that myelolymphoid progenitors settle the thymus and thus clarify the pathways by which stem cells give rise to downstream blood cell lineages.