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Kinetics of Negative and Positive Selection in the Thymus

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Mechanisms of Lymphocyte Activation and Immune Regulation III

Part of the book series: Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology ((AEMB,volume 292))

Abstract

Recent experiments show that CD4+8+ thymocytes represent the critical stage in T cell development at which the specificity of randomly generated αβ T cell receptors is screened. These cells are deleted when the receptor binds to the MHC molecule plus specific peptide presented by bone marrow derived cells but are rescued from cell death and induced to mature if the receptor binds to the MHC molecule on thymic epithelium in the absence of the specific peptide. Different tolerogens delete CD4+8+ thymocytes earlier or later during their lifespan and negative selection can occur prior to positive selection. The specificity of the αβ T cell receptor for either class I or class II thymic MHC molecules determines the CD4-8+ and CD4+8- phenotype of mature T cells.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Basel Institute for Immunology, CH-4058, Basel, Switzerland

    Pawel Kisielow & Harald von Boehmer

  2. Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy, Polish Academy of Sciences, 53-114, Wroclaw, Poland

    Pawel Kisielow

Authors
  1. Pawel Kisielow
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  2. Harald von Boehmer
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Medicine, University of California, Irvine, California, 92717, USA

    Sudhir Gupta

  2. Laboratory of Immunology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, 20892, USA

    William E. Paul

  3. The Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of Alabama, Birmingham, Alabama, 35294, USA

    Max D. Cooper

  4. Department of Biology, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California, 91125, USA

    Ellen V. Rothenberg

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© 1991 Plenum Press, New York

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Kisielow, P., von Boehmer, H. (1991). Kinetics of Negative and Positive Selection in the Thymus. In: Gupta, S., Paul, W.E., Cooper, M.D., Rothenberg, E.V. (eds) Mechanisms of Lymphocyte Activation and Immune Regulation III. Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology, vol 292. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4684-5943-2_4

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