-1- Brief Report Impaired thymic expression of tissue-restricted antigens licenses the de novo generation of autoreactive CD4 + T cells during murine acute GVHD Short Title: Thymus-dependent autoreactive T-cells in acute GVHD Simone Dertschnig 1 , Mathias M. Hauri-Hohl 2 , Madeleine Vollmer 3 , Georg A. Holländer 1,4 , and Werner Krenger 3 1 Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel and Basel University Children’s Hospital (UKBB), Basel, Switzerland; 2 Benaroya Research Institute, Virginia Mason Hospital, Seattle, Washington, USA; 3 Department of Biomedicine, University Hospital Basel (USB), Switzerland; 4 Department of Paediatrics and the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Correspondence should be addressed to Simone Dertschnig, PhD, Department of Biomedicine, University of Basel, Mattenstrasse 28, 4058 Basel, Switzerland, Phone: +41-61-695-3077, Fax: +41-61-695-3070, e-mail: simone.dertschnig@unibas.ch Scientific heading: Transplantation Blood First Edition Paper, prepublished online February 17, 2015; DOI 10.1182/blood-2014-08-597245 Copyright © 2015 American Society of Hematology For personal use only. on February 22, 2015. by guest www.bloodjournal.org From