@inproceedings {18504, title = {Artificial thymus_ a tissue engineering strategy}, journal = {Tissue Engineering Part A}, volume = {21}, year = {2015}, month = {2015-09-09 00:00:00}, pages = {S-1-S-413}, publisher = {Mary Ann Libert}, abstract = {

The thymus is the central organ responsible for the generation of T lymphocytes (1). Various diseases cause the thymus to produce in- sufficient T cells, which can lead to immune-suppression (2). Since T cells are essential for the protection against pathogens, it is crucial to promote de novo differentiation of T cells on diseased individuals. The available clinical solutions are: 1) one protocol involving the transplant of thymic stroma from unrelated children only applicable for athymic children (3); 2) for patients with severe peripheral T cell depletion and reduced thymic activity, the administration of stimu- lating molecules stimulating the activity of the endogenous thymus (4). A scaffold (CellFoam) was suggested to support thymus regen- eration in vivo (5), although this research was discontinued. Herein, we propose an innovative strategy to generate a bioartificial thymus. We use a polycaprolactone nanofiber mesh (PCL-NFM) seeded and cultured with human thymic epithelial cells (hTECs). The cells were obtained from infant thymus collected during pediatric cardio-tho- racic surgeries. We report new data on the isolation and characterization of those cells and their interaction with PCL-NFM, by expanding hTECs into relevant numbers and by optimizing cell seeding methods.

}, keywords = {Biomaterials, Stem cells, Thymus}, doi = {10.1089/ten.tea.2015.5000.abstracts.}, author = {Costa-Pinto, A. R. and Serre-Miranda, C. and Cerqueira-Rodrigues, B. and Martins, A. and Alves da Silva, M. L. and Correia-Neves, M. and Neves, N. M.} }