Reinterpreting Recent Thymic Emigrant Function: Defective or Adaptive?

Overview

Journal Curr Opin Immunol

Publisher Elsevier

Specialty Allergy & Immunology

Date 2017 Dec 20

PMID 29257954

Citations 19

Authors

Cody A Cunningham

Eric Y Helm

Pamela J Fink

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Recent thymic emigrants (RTEs) are those peripheral T cells that have most recently completed thymic development and egress. Over the past decade, significant advances have been made in understanding the cell-extrinsic and cell-intrinsic requirements for RTE maturation to mature naïve (MN) T cells and in detailing the functional differences that characterize these two T cell populations. Much of this work has suggested that RTEs are hypo-functional versions of more mature T cells. However, recent evidence has indicated that rather than being defective T cells, RTEs are exquisitely adapted to their cellular niche. In this review, we argue that RTEs are not flawed mature T cells but are adapted to fill an underpopulated T cell compartment, while maintaining self tolerance and possessing the capacity to mount robust immune responses.

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