In humans remission of Crohn’s disease patients was observed after human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection [6] and thymectomy was demonstrated to prevent relapse in ulcerative colitis (UC) patients [7].

In addition, a case study described cure of UC by excision of an invasive thymoma [8]. T lymphocytes are generated from haematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow and become immunocompetent through a maturation process in the thymus, during which they are termed thymocytes. In the thymus they undergo negative selection, deleting self-reactive thymocytes Luminespib by apoptosis, thereby generating central tolerance. Our previous studies on the Gαi2-deficient mouse model of colitis, as well as mice with dextran sodium sulphate (DSS)-induced colitis, demonstrated aberrant thymocyte development with reduced frequencies of immature and increased frequencies of mature thymocytes before and during onset of colitis, as well as reduced migration towards intrathymic FDA-approved Drug Library manufacturer chemokines [9,10]. We therefore hypothesized that

similar abnormalities might also be present in human IBD. Due to the very limited access of thymic tissue from IBD patients, we used the technique of T cell receptor excision circle (TREC) analysis to investigate the relative abundance of recent thymic emigrants (RTE) in the periphery. Upon entrance into the thymus the thymocytes undergo rearrangement of their TCR genes, along with intense proliferation. T lymphocytes have four sets of TCR genes that will form either of two types of heterodimers: αβTCRs which are expressed by the majority of peripheral T cells, or γδTCRs, expressed by a subset of T cells mainly in the skin and intestinal epithelium [11]. The great diversity in the antigen-recognizing domains of the TCR molecules are generated by random combinations of multiple variable (V), diversity (D) and joining (J) gene segments (TCR δ and β chains), or V and J gene segments (TCR γ O-methylated flavonoid and α chains). V(D)J recombination

is initiated by the recognition of recombination signal sequences (RSSs) that flank the coding segments, and during this process the DNA located between the two RSS regions is circularized, forming an extrachromosomal circular excision product containing the two ligated RSS regions [11]. These so-called TRECs are stable and are not duplicated during mitosis, and are thus diluted-out with each cell division [12]. The levels of TRECs in naive T cells in peripheral blood are therefore a good measurement of thymic output. The method has been used extensively to study T cell reconstitution in highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART)-treated HIV-patients [13] as well as after bone marrow transplantation following, e.g. myeloablative therapy for leukaemia [14].