Lysosomal-Mediated Degradation of Apoptotic Thymocytes within Thymic Nurse Cells

A thymic epithelial cell line (tsTNC-1) that maintains the ability to selectively bind and internalize immature αβTCRloCD4+CD8+ thymocytes in vitro was used in long-term coincubation experiments to determine the ultimate fate of thymocytes that remained within intracytoplasmic vacuoles of thymic nurse cells (TNCs). In an earlier report, a subset of the population released from the TNC interaction was shown to mature to the αβTCRhiCD69hi stage of development, while thymocytes that bided within the TNC cytoplasm died through the process of apoptosis. Here, we show the presence of both apoptotic and nonapoptotic thymocytes within the cytoplasm of freshly isolated TNCs as well as in tsTNC-1 cells in culture. A microscopic analysis revealed total degradation of the cytoplasmic apoptotic thymocyte population that remained in tsTNC-1 cells after an 8- to 10-h incubation period. A quantitative analysis showed an increase of cytoplasmic thymocyte degradation over time to almost 80% after 9 h of incubation. However, in the presence of bafilomycin A1, which is used to inhibit acidification of lysosomal vesicles, degradation of apoptotic thymocytes never reached 10%. These data suggest that lysosomes within TNCs play a role in the degradation of apoptotic thymocytes. We examined tsTNC-1 cells before the addition of thymocytes to cultures and found lysosomes to be clustered around the nucleus in the cytoplasm of TNCs. Shortly after the internalization event, apoptotic thymocytes move to the area of the cytoplasm containing lysosomes. Using the confocal microscope, we obtained evidence that shows the degradation event to be facilitated through the fusion of lysosomes with the specialized vacuoles within TNCs containing apoptotic cells.