I agree with your opinion on the continuing role of the thymus in the regeneration of lyphocytes throughout adulthood.
Have you been followinf the Fas mediated apoptosis story lately? If this
data holds up, it is possible that the mechanism of double positive infection mnediated cd8 loss could result from apoptosis of the infected Cd8cd4 ++ precursor compartment. I _strongly_ believe that this is indeed the case. I just don't know where we might find this population in order to prove this pathological mechanism...
My theory would also explain why HTLV does not cause AIDS and HIV does...
and why we find HTLV-I in CD8 single possies and not HIV.. Either HTLV protects from apoptosis via TAX (very likely) or HIV induces it (also likely...)
Any thoughts...
