The retroviruses carrying ${ u}-myc$ and ${ u}-raf$ oncogenes were infected into fetal thymic organ culture (FTOC) to study the molecular mechanisms involved in T cell development. T cell lymphomas in the different stages of T cell development were obtained from this culture system. Interestingly, a few cell lines obtained from this system have a lack of transfected oncogenes, however these cells have the characteristics of transformed cells. In spite of the discrete phenotype of these transformed cell lines, the same pattern of recombination of endogenous c-raf genes was detected from Southern blot analysis. We suggest in this regard that the translocation event of thymocytes, or abnormal promoter activity, can cause lymphomagenesis by way of c-raf.