The fourth way? Harnessing aggressive tendencies in the thymus.

Troy A Baldwin, Kristin A Hogquist, Stephen C Jameson

Center for Immunology, Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.

Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950) 2004 Dec 1

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During late stages of thymic development, T cells must chose between different fates, dictated by their TCR specificity. Typically, this is thought of as a choice between three alternatives (being positive selection for useful T cells vs negative selection or neglect for harmful or useless T cells). However, there is growing evidence for a fourth alternative, in which T cells are positively selected by agonist ligands, which would normally be expected to induce T cell deletion. In this review, we will discuss where and when agonist selection is induced and whether this should be considered as a novel form of thymic selection or as an alternative differentiation state for Ag-exposed T cells.

Citation

Troy A Baldwin, Kristin A Hogquist, Stephen C Jameson. The fourth way? Harnessing aggressive tendencies in the thymus. Journal of immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950). 2004 Dec 1;173(11):6515-20