part of part of capable of capable of tuft cell medullary thymic epithelial cell tuft cell of thymus 2025-01-16T11:29:54Z thymic tuft cell A tuft cell that is part of the medullary epithelium of the thymus, characterized by lateral microvilli and specific markers, including L1CAM in both mice (Zhang et al., 2022) and humans (Sun et al., 2023), as well as MHC II in mice (Miller et al., 2018). This cell is pivotal in immune functions such as antigen presentation, central tolerance, and type 2 immunity. A tuft cell in the thymus exhibits characteristics of both a medullary thymic epithelial cell (mTEC) and a peripheral tuft cell. Its development is governed by transcription factors such as POU2F3. A thymic tuft cell is a subset of terminally differentiated medullary thymic epithelial cell comprising 5-10% of total mTECs. Lineage-tracing studies indicate that this cell arises from mature MHCII mTECs, with development occurring through both Aire-dependent and Aire-independent pathways. However, its exact origins remain unclear. antigen processing and presentation of endogenous peptide antigen via MHC class II thymus epithelium