TβRIII deficiency results in increased apoptosis of developing thymocytes.

<p>(A) Left panel, representative CD4 versus CD8 staining dot plots from TβRIII^+/+ and TβRIII^−/− fetal thymic lobes at day 7 of culture. Histograms show the expression of active caspase 3⁺ cells in each gated thymocyte subset. Right panel, graphs represent the percentage of active caspase 3⁺ cells and the levels of expression (MFI values) in each thymocyte subset. Data are representative of three independent experiments. (B) Left panel, representative histograms show the percentage of Annexin V⁺ cells in gated thymocyte subsets. Right panel, graph shows the analysis of the percentage of Annexin V⁺ cells in thymocytes from day 7 TβRIII^+/+ or TβRIII^−/− FTOCs. Data are representative of two independent experiments. Mean values ± SEM are shown (TβRIII^+/+ n = 3 and TβRIII^−/− n = 3). Asterisks indicate statistically significant differences (** p≤0.05).