Single-cell RNA-sequencing of mouse thymic epithelial cells across the first year of life

The thymus shapes the T cell receptor repertoire, and is one of the first organs to rapidly age, with gross changes in cellularity and architecture. To resolve the nature of these changes we used SMART-Seq2 on FACS purified thymic epithelial cells (TEC) across the first year of mouse life. We sorted 4 TEC populations in each of 5 mice at each age (1 week, 4 weeks, 16 weeks, 32 weeks and 52 weeks old).

胸腺可塑造T细胞受体（T cell receptor）库，亦是最早快速衰老的器官之一，其细胞组成与组织结构会发生显著改变。为解析这类衰老变化的本质，本研究在小鼠生命首年的多个时间点，对经荧光激活细胞分选（Fluorescence-Activated Cell Sorting, FACS）纯化的胸腺上皮细胞（thymic epithelial cells, TEC）开展了SMART-Seq2测序。在每个年龄节点（1周龄、4周龄、16周龄、32周龄及52周龄），我们从5只小鼠中分别分选得到4种胸腺上皮细胞群。