Interaction of mature CD3⁺CD4⁺ T cells with dendritic cells triggers the development of tertiary lymphoid structures in the thyroid
J. Clin. Invest. Tatjana Marinkovic, et al. 116:2622 doi:10.1172/JCI28993 [Go to this article.]

Figure 4
CD3⁺CD4⁺ T cell infiltration induces clustering of DCs and expression of adhesion molecules in the thyroid. GFP⁺CD3⁺CD4⁺ T cells (10⁶) were injected i.v. into RAGTGCCL21 mice. (A) Thyroids from mice sacrificed on days 3 and 10 were stained with anti-CD11c antibody for visualization of DCs. Inset shows higher magnification (×40) of the DC/T cell cluster present on day 3 after T cell transfer. (B) Double staining for CD11c (red) with ICAM (blue) or VCAM (blue) on day 10 revealed that adhesion molecules were expressed by DCs (magenta). Notice expression of VCAM on vessel cells as well as on host CD11c^– cells. Shown are representative sections (n = 3 mice at each time point). (C) CD3⁺CD4⁺ T cells (1 × 10⁶) were injected i.v. into RAGTGCCL21 mice. At day 5, mice were injected again with 1 × 10⁶ CD11c⁺ cells sorted from the bone marrow of mice double transgenic for Flt3 ligand and GFP. As a control, GFP⁺ DCs alone were injected into RAG and RAGTGCCL21 mice. After 5 days, thyroids of recipient mice (n = 2 in each group) were analyzed for the presence of GFP⁺ cells. Representative sections are presented. Scale bars: 0.05 mm.