June 6 with Diana Cha
Cell competition is a tumour suppressor mechanism in the thymus.
Presented by Diana Cha, Graduate Student (Patton Lab)
Martins et al. (2014) Nature 509: 465–470
http://www.nature.com.proxy.library.vanderbilt.edu/nature/journal/v509/n7501/full/nature13317.html
T cells develop in the thymus from bone marrow-derived progenitors that continuously replace thymus-resident progenitors. Martins et al. reveals a mechanism in which old and new cells compete for the survival factor IL-7, thus inducing death of thymus-resident progenitors. Furthermore, in the absence of competition, when the input from bone-marrow progenitors is blocked, old cells reacquire the ability to self-renew and undergo transformation. This transformation leads to T-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia (T-ALL) and tumor formation. These data suggest that cell-cell competition can act as a tumor-suppressor mechanism.