Il7r mice

Wild-type (WT) 6–8 week old female C57BL/6 mice were obtained from Jackson Labs (Bar Harbor, ME). RAG2−/− and IL-7R−/− mice were also obtained from Jackson Labs and bred in house (Bar Harbor, ME). CysLT1R−/− and CysLT2R−/− mice were kindly provided by Drs. Yoshihide Kanaoka, Joshua Boyce, Nora Barrett, and Frank Austen at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston and bred in house. All animal experiments were approved by the UC San Diego Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee.

C57Bl/6 wildtype (WT) mice, CD45.1⁺ WT mice (Charles River, Charles River: Ly5Mouse/B6.SJL-PtprcaPepcb/BoyCrl) and Il7r^tm1Imx/Il7r^tm1Imx CD45.2⁺ mice (referred to as Il7r^−/− mice, Jackson Laboratories) were maintained at the Sunnybrook Research Institute (SRI), Toronto, Ontario, Canada. All animal protocols were approved by the SRI animal care committee. Mice aged 4.5–6 weeks old were used for ex vivo analysis of T cells and thymic DCs. F1 progeny of CD45.2⁺ C57Bl/6 and CD45.1⁺ C57Bl/6 parents, aged 4.5–6 weeks old, were used as recipients for bone marrow (BM) chimera and competitive BM reconstitution experiments. Mice aged 7–12 weeks old were used for bone marrow donor cells. Donor mice were aged-matched in each independent experiment, as were recipient mice.