In our system, Aire+ cells expressed four IS components (MHC-II, CD80, CD86, CD40) and their expression levels increased at higher cell density.
According to tradition, Spanish colonizer Pedro de Mendoza established the first settlement there, which he named Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Aire ("Our Lady St . Maryof the Good Air").
This is welded into our culture at Aire," he says.
In our in vitro Aire+ cell culture system, it was shown that expression of Aire gene and organ-specific TSA genes (Csna, Cyp17, Fabp2, InsII and Tgn) increases as cell density increases (Fig. 3A C).
Remarkable increase of TSA-gene expression has been seen during developmental stages of Aire-expressing mTECs in mouse thymus (Gray et al., 2007; Gillard and Farr, 2005; Gäbler et al., 2007), hence we postulated that our in vitro Aire+ cell system may mimic in vivo differentiation and maturation process of mTECs and mDCs.
Our data shows that Aire is also expressed in spermatids and strongly supports a co-regulatory relationship between Aire and Dnmt3L.
Collectively, our data show that AIRE belongs to a new subset of PHD finger-containing proteins that preferentially recognize H3K4me0.
In conclusion, our data show that AIRE is able to promote ectopic expression of tissue-specific genes from chromatin lacking transcriptionally active histone H3 modifications.
Here, we confirmed our previous observation that Aire+ thymic epithelial cells adhere to fresh thymocytes and kill them by inducing apoptosis, thus potentially reproducing in vitro some aspects of the negative selection of T cells in vivo.
Rego, MS. "Towards a Legible Anthropology: Airing our Dirty Laundry". (2014).
