Morphological and functional maturation of human thymic epithelium in culture

• DOI: 10.1038/251421a0
• Publication Date: 2005-08-03T19:15:07Z
• Authors: K. W. PYKE; E. W. GELFAND
• Keywords: Organ culture

ORGAN culture of embryonic avian and murine thymus1–5, as well as explants of guinea pig and rabbit thymus6–10, have been observed to produce outgrowths which in some cases were described as predominantly lymphoid in nature, epithelial in other cases. Two publications have described human embryonic thymus in culture, using the plasma clot technique9,10. We have established epithelial outgrowths from explants of human thymic tissue and maintained these cultures for periods up to 3 months.