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- Title
Immunobiology of Mouse Dendritic Epidermal T Cells: A Decade Later, Some Answers, But Still More Questions.
- Authors
Tigelaar, Robert E.; Lewis, Julia M.
- Abstract
Over the past decade, overwhelming evidence has accumulated in many species, most notably in mice, that epithelial sites such as skin, intestine, and reproductive tract are populated with relatively discrete subsets of γδ cells. Such studies have identified several distinguishing and, in some cases, unique features of the dendritic epidermal T cells (DETC) populating the skin of all normal mice: homogeneous V5-J1-Cγ1/V1-D2-J2-Cδ T-cell receptors devoid of junctional diversity, apparent tissue restriction in adult mice to the skin, an important role for active hair growth in their localization and/or proliferation in the skin, and a capacity to recognize an antigen expressed on stressed epidermal cells. These properties have led to the hypothesis that DETC play distinctive roles in cutaneous immune surveillance and/or immunoregulation <em>via</em> recognition of a common self-antigen expressed by adjacent cells under various potentially harmful circumstances. Despite substantive advances in our knowledge about γδ cells in general (e.g., recent evidence that their manner of antigen recognition may be fundamentally different from that used by conventional γβ T cells) and about epithelial-specific subsets such as murine DETC in particular, it is clear that, compared with our understanding of γβ cells, major gaps still exist in our understanding of these cells. Persisting questions about DETC include: precise identification of the ligands for their homogenous T-cell receptors, the cellular and molecular requirements for their activation, their full range of functional activities, the reason(s) for the absence in normal human skin of a precise morphologic and phenotypic homologue, and, perhaps most important, their biologically relevant role(s) in cutaneous physiology, immunity, and/or pathology.
- Publication
Journal of Investigative Dermatology, 1995, Vol 105, p43S
- ISSN
0022-202X
- Publication type
Academic Journal
- DOI
10.1038/jid.1995.9