Presence of progenitors restricted to T, B, or myeloid lineage, but absence of multipotent stem cells, in the murine fetal thymus.

The most immature population of fetal thymus (FT) cells has been shown to generate not only T but also B and myeloid cells. The present study was undertaken to clarify whether such a multipotent activity of the earliest population of FT cells is attributed to multipotent hemopoietic progenitors or to a mixture of lineage-restricted progenitors. Examination of individual FT progenitors by a recently established clonal assay system, which is able to determine the developmental potential of each progenitor toward T, B, and myeloid lineages, elucidated that a large majority of progenitors in FT were restricted to the T cell lineage. Presence of a small number of B or myeloid lineage-restricted progenitors was also disclosed. No multipotent progenitors, however, were detected in FT. These results are consistent with our recent finding that restriction of hemopoietic stem cells to T, B, and myeloid lineages takes place in the fetal liver.