Intrathymic education of alpha beta and gamma delta T cells is accompanied by cell surface expression of RNA/DNA helicase [corrected].
Despite ubiquitous expression of the gene, RNA/DNA helicase protein was found to be expressed specifically in all cells of the T cell lineage. Interestingly, immature thymocytes that are rearranging T cell receptor (TCR) genes express the helicase strongly on the cell surface and the surface expression is terminated upon engagement of functional TCR by positively selecting ligands. This provides the first evidence that a protein that binds nucleic acids can directly contact the extracellular environment in a developmentally controlled manner. Our discovery of a novel molecular link between the cell surface and nuclear events specific for thymocytes suggests that thymic education is supervised by a previously unknown molecular mechanism, which can now be experimentally explored.