Thymic epithelial antibodies: immunohistological analysis and introduction of nomenclature.

During the Workshop "The Thymus. Histophysiology and Dynamics in the Immune System', Rolduc, april 1989, a special workshop was hold to characterize monoclonal antibodies (mAb) to thymic epithelial cells (TEC) in thymus of man, mice, and rat. Twenty-five TEC-specific mAb's were evaluated for their immunohistological staining patterns on reference thymus, thymuses during ontogeny, various other organs (all tissues obtained from the species against the mAb was raised) and thymuses of other species. In this report only immunohistological results of reference thymuses and thymuses of other species are described. Based on the staining patterns on reference thymuses, mAb could be subdivided in 5 main groups. It is proposed to use these clusters of thymic epithelial staining patterns (CTES) to designate individual mAb, awaiting the possible incorporation in existing CD nomenclature for leucocyte differentiation antigens. The present immunohistological approach will be extended by additional analysis for which a protocol was designed. The ultimate goal of this TEC-mAb workshop is to get well-characterized reagents in the analysis of TEC-associated molecules with putative function in intrathymic T-cell processing.