Figure 4.

Serial measurement of TCR gene deletion circles in αβ and γδ splenic T cells after thymectomy. Chicks were thymectomized at 1 week of age, and spleen samples were collected at regular intervals for purification of TCRVβ1⁺ and TCR-γδ⁺ cells by fluorescence-activated cell sorting. DNA from the purified subpopulations was used to determine the numbers of deletion circles created by Vβ1-Dβ and Vγ1-Jγ1 rearrangements in each T cell subpopulation by using the quantitative PCR-based strategy illustrated in Fig. 1B. Three animals were examined at each time point.