Lineage determination in the immune system

Abstract

Underlying all immune responses are the developmental programs that give immune cells their identities. Developmental controls determine the kinds of effector mechanisms that are available to different classes of cells, the degree of amplification that they can achieve through clonal expansion, the signals that they will respond to, and the limits that will be set on their abilities to alter function in different environmental conditions. As all these cell types are ultimately derived from common hematopoietic precursors, they each become distinct from other cell types at developmental choice points that define a time course of branching lineage relationships. This volume showcases striking new advances that illuminate the mechanisms governing several particularly interesting choice points where divergent immune cell identities are established.

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