The Earliest Thymic T Cell Progenitors Sustain B Cell and Myeloid Lineage Potentials

The stepwise commitment from hematopoietic stem cells in the bone marrow (BM) to T lymphocyte-restricted progenitors in the thymus represents a paradigm for understanding the requirement for distinct extrinsic cues during different stages of lineage restriction from multipotent to lineage restricted progenitors. However, the commitment stage at which progenitors migrate from the BM to the thymus remains unclear. Here we provide functional and molecular evidence at the single cell level that the earliest progenitors in the neonatal thymus possessed combined granulocyte-monocyte, T and B lymphocyte, but not megakaryocyte-erythroid lineage potential. These potentials were identical to those of thymus-seeding progenitors in the BM, which were closely related at the molecular level. These findings establish the distinct lineage-restriction stage at which the T lineage commitment transits from the BM to the remote thymus.