vborde at my-deja.com wrote:
>> Hello everyone
> I would like to know what would happen to the
> T-cells population (repertoire) when the thymus
> becomes non-functional, at the adult phase? Would
> this person lose all his mature T-cells? Would he
> also lose his self tolerance and become velnerable
> to autoimmune disease? How are the T-cells
> renewed? Thank you very much.
It's probably the subject of the next Nobel's prize ;=))
In fact, nobody knows what happens in this case.
It seems that some mature, educated T-cells could survive for a very
long time in the periphery.
Another hypothesis says that they could have the ability of
self-renewing...
The last hypothesis explains that may be there is another place for
T-cells to be educated (skin ? epithelia ??)
But all the observations which are made show that older persons are more
sensitive to autoimmune disease...
