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. 2016 Jul 25;185(3):271–280. doi: 10.1111/cei.12819

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Autoaggressive T cell development in the thymus. 1, Double‐negative (DN) cells enter the thymus and recombination‐activating gene (RAG) proteins become activated to rearrange T cell receptor (TCR) beta locus, cells express pre‐TCR, RAGs become induced again to generate a mature TCR. 2, Developing cells progress to double‐positive (DP) state. 3, DP cells interact with cortical epithelium to undergo positive selection in the thymic cortex. 4, Following TCR interaction with cortical thymic epithelial cells (cTEC), DP cells express CCR7 and CD69. 5, CCL19 is released from the medulla to attract DP cells based on CCR7 expression. 6, DP cells become single‐positive for CD4 or CD8, interact with medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTEC) to undergo negative selection. Cells express CD62L. 7a, cells with high affinity, self‐reactive TCRs are deleted; 7b, some cells undergo TCR editing to alter TCR V alpha expression; 7c, Self‐reactive T cells may escape negative selection or be generated from faulty TCR editing. 8, SP cells with appropriate TCRs exit to the periphery following sphingosine‐1‐phosphate (S1P) concentration gradients.