Nude mice bearing grafts of normal thymus reject skin grafts and have low, but higher than usual, lymphocyte counts. Nude bone marrow can successfully repopulate the thymus and thymus-derived areas of lethelly irradiated recipient mice. Attempts to reconstitute nude mice with normal fetal liver failed. The so-called thymic rudiment of nude mice when grafted to normal mice did not develop thymocytes. These experiments show that nude mice suffer from a defect of the epithelial portion of the thymus rather than of the precursors of thymocytes.

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