Publication Date:
2012-02-01
Description:
When the host encounters a pathogen, the ensuing immune response involves a complex set of cellular responses distributed across many different types of cells. In T and B lymphocytes of the adaptive immune system, these responses include irreversible differentiation events that generate functionally specialized subpopulations of cells (1). Understanding how pathogens and vaccines influence the number, type, and efficacy of specific differentiation states in the T-cell compartment is a major goal in immunology. The study by Han et al. in PNAS (2) interrogates the functional response of individual T cells over time using a nanofluidic platform. Their experiments reveal that...
Print ISSN:
0027-8424
Electronic ISSN:
1091-6490
Topics:
Biology
,
Medicine
,
Natural Sciences in General