The immunocompetence of murine stromal cell-associated thymocytes.

Thymocyte subpopulations that associate in vivo with distinct nonlymphoid cells of the thymus have been isolated, and their immunocompetence was analyzed. Previous studies have indicated that greater than 95% of such cells bear a surface antigen phenotype representative of immature thymocytes, and are among the earliest thymic compartments repopulated by bone marrow-derived cells after lethal and sub-lethal irradiation. Stromal cell-associated thymocytes may be activated in vivo because they proliferate well in vitro with no additional stimulus, and show little increase in proliferation with the addition of T cell mitogens or allogeneic spleen cells. Stromal cell-associated T cells contain cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL) precursors that are indistinguishable from mature peripheral T cells by the parameters of self tolerance, alloreactivity, H-2 restriction, and stringency of self H-2 preference. CTL precursor frequencies and the cytotoxic activity of cells further separated on the basis of high levels of Thy-1 expression argue against the possibility that stromal cell-associated CTL activity is due solely to contaminating mature lymphocytes. Our data suggest that stromal cell-associated thymocytes represent an intermediate subpopulation of thymocytes that is functionally mature and that expresses an immature surface phenotype. Furthermore, the imposition of self tolerance and MHC restriction specificity appears to be tightly associated with the acquisition of immunocompetence in these thymocyte subpopulations.