Leaving no one behind: tracing every human thymocyte by single-cell RNA-sequencing

Abstract

The thymus is the primary organ for T-cell development, providing an essential microenvironment consisting of the appropriate cytokine milieu and specialized stromal cells. Thymus-seeding progenitors from circulation immigrate into the thymus and undergo the stepwise T-cell specification, commitment, and selection processes. The transcriptional factors, epigenetic regulators, and signaling pathways involved in the T-cell development have been intensively studied using mouse models. Despite our growing knowledge of T-cell development, major questions remain unanswered regarding the ontogeny and early events of T-cell development at the fetal stage, especially in humans. The recently developed single-cell RNA-sequencing technique provides an ideal tool to investigate the heterogeneity of T-cell precursors and the molecular mechanisms underlying the divergent fates of certain T-cell precursors at the single-cell level. In this review, we aim to summarize the current progress of the study on human thymus organogenesis and thymocyte and thymic epithelial cell development, which is to shed new lights on developing novel strategies for in vitro T-cell regeneration and thymus rejuvenation.