Skip to main content
. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 May 13.
Published in final edited form as: Cell. 2012 Mar 30;149(1):16–17. doi: 10.1016/j.cell.2012.03.005

Figure 1. Recipe for Refunctionalizing a Thymic Niche.

Figure 1

(A) Simplified schema of a normal thymus in a mouse expressing the transcription factor Foxn1.

(B) The same schema for a thymus of a nude mouse that does not express Foxn1; here the thymus lacks hematopoietic elements.

(C–F) By re-expressing individual signaling factors in the thymus of the nude mice—Ccl25 (C), Scf (D), Cxcl12 (E), and DLL4 (F)—Calderón and Boehm (2012) uncover a hierarchical restructuring of the thymus. The combined expression of factors leads to phenotypes as described in this Preview.