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. 2020 Aug 14;11:1837. doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2020.01837

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Copyright © 2020 Giardino, Borzacchiello, De Luca, Romano, Prencipe, Cirillo and Pignata.

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

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Genes involved in thymus organogenesis. Eya1, Six, Hoxa3, Tbx1, and Chd7 take part to the first stages of thymus development from neural crest cells (NCCs) in the posterior part of the 3rd pharyngeal pouch (PP). This step is independent from Foxn1 expression. In the second stage, Foxn1 regulates the expression of Hoxa3, Dll4, Ccl25, and Cxcl12, necessary for the thymic epithelial cells (TECs) differentiation. During this phase, cTECs (expressing K8 and K18 keratin type) and mTECs (expressing K5 and K14 keratin type) originate from the same bi-potential TECs progenitor. Chd7 is also critical for the development of cortical and medullary TECs from pharyngeal endoderm. The crosstalk between TECs and developing thymocytes is required to generate mature TECs and functional T cells.