The thymic epithelium is the major microenvironmental component of the thymus, the primary lymphoid organ responsible for the generation of T lymphocytes. Thymic epithelial cells (TEC) control intrathymic T cell differentiation by means of distinct types of interactions. TEC constitutively produce chemokines and extracellular matrix ligands (such as laminin and fibronectin) and express corresponding receptors, which allow thymocytes to migrate in a very ordered fashion. We previously showed that laminin mediates TEC/thymocyte interactions in both mice and humans. More recently, we used RNAi technology to knock-down the ITGA5 gene (which encodes CD49e, the integrin a-chain subunit of the fibronectin receptor VLA-5) in cultured human TEC. Using a similar strategy, herein we nocked-down the ITGA6 gene, which encodes CD49f, the a-chain of two integrin-type laminin receptors, namely VLA-6 (a6b1) and a6b4.