Analysis of the chemotactic activities of mouse chemokine MIP-2 to thymocyte subgroups

A mouse chemokine MIP-2 (macrophage inflamatory protein 2) is constitutively expressed not only by peritoneal macrophages, but also by fresh thymic stromal cells, based on RT-PCR detection. Moreover, the specific receptor of MIP-2 is expressed at different levels among four main subgroups of murine thymocytes including DN, DP, CD4SP and CD8SP. By the chemotaxis assays with Boyden chamber, we proved that the recombinant mouse MIP-2 can chemoattract the four main subgroups of thymocytes in different degrees, it mainly chemoattract the DP and SP sub-groups. We firstly reported that MIP-2 is involved in the regulation of the directional migration of developing thymocytes.