Battle of the T-cells.Last year, experiments suggested that two types of T-lymphocytes -- CD4 and CD 8 -- spar with each other in diabetes-prone mice. Researchers concluded that CD8 cells CD8 cells T cells with CD8 on the surface, which are immunosuppressive and suppress mitogen-induced and antigen-specific antibody production, and require CD4 cell cooperation may play a protective role in these mice by suppressing the CD4 cells CD4 cell CD4+ lymphocyte A circulating T cell with a 'helper' phenotype; in AIDS Pts, the levels of CD4+ cells is a crude indicator of immune status and susceptibility to certain AIDS-related conditions; these Pts may suffer KS as CD4+ cells fall below 0. , which attack pancreatic islet cells islet cell n. One of the endocrine cells making up the islets of Langerhans. (SN:3/31/90, p.198). Now, another T-cell has entered the fray. Charles Janeway Charles Alderson Janeway, Jr. (1943-2003) was a noted immunologist. A member of the National Academy of Sciences, he held a faculty position at Yale University's medical school and was an HHMI Investigator. Jr. and his colleagues at Yale University Yale University, at New Haven, Conn.; coeducational. Chartered as a collegiate school for men in 1701 largely as a result of the efforts of James Pierpont, it opened at Killingworth (now Clinton) in 1702, moved (1707) to Saybrook (now Old Saybrook), and in 1716 was propose that "autoreactive" T-lymphocytes are the real protecting influence and that CD4 and CD8 cells combine forces for a destructive effect. The Yale group injected irradiated mice, which normally do not develop diabetes, with cloned CD4 and CD8 cells. The majority of the mice receiving a mix of the two types became diabetic, Janeway reports, while most of those receiving either cell type alone have so far avoided the disease. In another experiment, the researchers injected cloned autoreactive T-cells into prediabetic mice. So far, only a few have developed the disease. "A single injection greatly retards the onset of diabetes," concludes Janeway. He theorizes that the autoreactive T-cells help regulate diabetes by suppressing the production of islet-attacking T-cells and by protecting the islets themselves. |
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