Similarities between Hassall's corpuscles of the human thymus and the epidermis

B, von Gaudecker; Em, Schmale

doi:10.1007/bf00224546

Cited by 56 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Many authors dealt with the structure of Hassall's corpuscles as a specific element in the thymus medulla -mainly Hassall (1849), Palestro et al (1998), Bloom & Fawcet (1986, Bodey et al (1994Bodey et al ( , 2000a, Gaudecker & Schmale (1974). Palestro et al (1998) described, corresponding with our study, a big central space in some of HCs, where the lymphocytes are located, together with PAS-positive, swollen cells with big hydropic nuclei.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Thymic medullary structures: Microscopical picture of the thymic medullary structures in children with congenital heart defects

2012

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The aim of this work is to describe the structure of the thymus, especially its medullary part, in children with congenital heart defects. It is known that development of the thymus and the heart is also influenced by neural crest cells. During the early development of the heart and the thymus cells proliferate and migrate to their primordia. It is known that inadequate cephalic neural crest contribution during development of pharyngeal pouch derivatives results in defective organogenesis of the face, the thymus, parathyroid glands and also the heart. We studied the structure of the thymus in children with congenital heart defects from 0 to 12 years of life at light microscopic and electron-microscopic levels. Thymuses of the patients were surgically removed in the Children's Cardiocenter in Bratislava. The results of our study confirmed the differences in the medullary structures of thymuses with chosen diagnoses. Hassall's corpuscles in the thymic medulla were various in size and also in structure and number. The special structures of the thymic medullary region in children with ventricular septal defects and defects of outflow of the heart were big cystic Hassall's corpuscles. In comparison with a size of Hassall's corpuscles in normal thymuses the size of Hassall's corpuscles in studied thymuses suprisingly ranged between 100-250 µm.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 81%

Thymic medullary structures: Microscopical picture of the thymic medullary structures in children with congenital heart defects

2012

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“…This is consistent with the electron microscopic finding that these cells contain abundant tonofilaments (18)(19)(20). Hassall's corpuscles of the thymus are similar histologically to epidermis; they contain abundant tonofilaments and desmosomes (21,22) as well as crossreacting antigens (23,24). The present finding that the antiserum to keratin reacts with Hassall's corpuscles shows that they contain keratins immunologically related to those of stratum corneum.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 49%

Keratin cytoskeletons in epithelial cells of internal organs

Sun

Shih

Green

1979

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

419

151

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An antiserum against human epidermal keratins was used to detect keratins in frozen sections of various rabbit and human tissues bv indirect immunofluorescence. Strong staining was observed in all stratified squamous epithelia (epidermis, cornea, conjunctiva, tongue, esophagus, vagina, and anus), in epidermal appendages (hair follicle. sebaceous gland, ductal and myoepithelial cells of sweat glands), as well as in Ilassall's corpuscles of the thymus, indicating that all contain abundant keratins. No staining by the antiserum was observed in fibroblasts, muscle of anv tvpe, cartilage, blood vessel, nerve tissue, iris or lens epithelium, or the glomerular or tubular cells of the kidnev. In contrast, the antiserum stained the cells of most epithelia of the intestinal tract, urinary tract (urethra, bladder, ureter, collecting ducts of kidney), female genital tract (cervix, cervical glands, uterus, and oviduct), and respiratory tract (trachea and bronchi). Epithelial cells of the fine ductal system in the pancreas and submaxillary gland also stained well. When primary cultures of epithelial cells derived from bladder, intestine, kidney, and trachea were grown on glass coverslips and stained with anti-keratin, fiber networks similar to those of cultured keratinocytes were observed. These results show that keratins constitute a cytoskeleton in epithelial cells of diverse morphology and embryological origin. The stability of keratin filaments probably confers the structural strength necessary for cells covering a free surface. Keratin staining can be used to obtain information about the origin of cell lines. The stratified squamous epithelium is the most common covering or lining surface of the animal body. It may be of ecto-(lernmal origin (the epidermis) or of endodermal origin (the esophageal epithelium). The dominant cell type of these epithelia (the keratinocvte) contains abundant 80-A filaments composed of keratin proteins. Cells of this type cultivated from different stratified sqltuamolus epithelia are rather similar (1), keratins accounting for about 30% of the cellular protein.Most other epithelia, such as those of the intestinal, respiratory, genital, and urinary tracts, seem quite different. Although the cells of these epithelia frequently contain 80-to 100-A filaments, they are not as abundant as those of the keratinocvte and mav not show their typical lateral aggregation. The cells of epithelia other than stratified squamous are often secretory and have morphology and specialization very different from those of the keratinocvtes.The keratins of human stratum corneum have been purified as a group and used to make a rabbit antiserum (2). This antisertim produces specific precipitin lines when tested against extracts of keratinocytes, and it stains by indirect immunofluorescence a network of fibers wvithin the cytoplasm of keratinocytes (3). Using this serum, wve show here that keratins are present not only in cells of all stratified squjamous epithelia (of hunman and rabbit) tumt also in many other e...

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“…Because of the abundant expression of the various elements of the pathway in Hassall's corpuscles, our previous results strongly suggested that the pathway may be involved in the differentiation process of the thymic medullary epithelium (Nishio et al 2000). Interestingly, Hassall's corpuscles have been reported to possess similarities to epidermis on the basis of an electron microscopical and histochemical study (Gaudecker & Schmale, 1974). Furthermore, Patel et al (1995) compared the phenotype of thymic epithelial cells to 83 other cell lines studied in human leukocyte differentiation antigens (HLDA-V), and found that thymic epithelial cells were strikingly more similar to epidermal keratinocytes than to any of the other cell types tested.…”

Section: mentioning

confidence: 99%

Immunolocalisation of the janus kinases (JAK)—signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT) pathway in human epidermis

et al. 2001

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The janus kinases (JAK) and signal transducers and activators of the transcription (STAT) pathway have been shown to be activated by a number of cytokines or growth factors and to play significant roles in the differentiation of various cell types. In the present study, we investigated the distribution of the JAK-STAT pathway using immunohistochemistry in the human epidermis. Each element of the pathway showed abundant and differential expression in the epidermis. The differential distribution of the elements was most strikingly observed in the horny keratinised cell and granular layers of the epidermis. JAK2, JAK3, STAT1 and STAT5 were expressed in high amounts, and JAK1, TYK2, STAT2, STAT3, STAT4 and STAT6 to a much lesser extent in the horny cell layer. JAK3, TYK2, STAT2, STAT3, STAT4 and STAT6 were more abundantly expressed in the granular layer than the lower layers of the epidermis. JAK1, STAT1 and STAT5 were expressed at almost the same levels in the various layers of the epidermis. These results show that elements of the JAK-STAT pathway are abundantly and differentially expressed in the epidermis. It is suggested that each element of the pathway may play a role at a distinct stage of keratinocyte differentiation.Key words : Skin ; keratinocyte differentiation. The janus kinases (JAK) and signal transducers and activators of the transcription (STAT) signalling pathway have been shown to be activated by a number of cytokines, growth factors, and oncogenic tyrosine kinases (Ihle, 1995). JAKs associate with the intracellular domains of particular receptors and become activated by ligand binding to the receptors at the cell surface. Activated JAKs consecutively phosphorylate STATs at distinct tyrosine residues. The tyrosine-phosphorylated STATs leave the receptor complex, translocate to the nucleus, and promote the transcriptional activation of ligand-inducible genes (Darnell, 1997). To date, 4 members of the JAK family (JAK1, JAK2, JAK3 and TYK2) and 7 of the STAT family (STAT1, STAT2, STAT3, STAT4, STAT5a, STAT5b and STAT6) have been identifiedCorrespondence to Dr Koichi Suzuki, Department of Legal Medicine, Osaka Medical College, 2-7 Daigaku, Takatsuki, 569-8686, Japan. Tel. : j81 726 831221 ; fax : j81 726 846515 ; e-mail : leg010!art.osaka-med.ac.jp (Ihle, 1995). The pathway has been demonstrated to play significant roles in determining differentiation processes of a variety of cell types, including myeloid leukaemia cells Nakajima et al. 1996 ;Yamanaka et al. 1996), murine mammary epithelial cells (Liu et al. 1997), helper T cells (Shimoda et al. 1996Takeda et al. 1996), murine haematopoietic cells (Rane & Reddy, 1994) and rat hepatocytes (Runge et al. 1998).The epidermis provides a useful model for investigating the differentiation process. In the epidermis, the outer (horny cell) layers of terminally differentiated cells are repopulated from a basal layer of proliferating keratinocytes. The proliferating keratinocytes are released from the substratum, migrate outwards and enter a...

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Similarities between Hassall's corpuscles of the human thymus and the epidermis

Cited by 56 publications

References 41 publications

Thymic medullary structures: Microscopical picture of the thymic medullary structures in children with congenital heart defects

Thymic medullary structures: Microscopical picture of the thymic medullary structures in children with congenital heart defects

Keratin cytoskeletons in epithelial cells of internal organs

Immunolocalisation of the janus kinases (JAK)—signal transducers and activators of transcription (STAT) pathway in human epidermis

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