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Interleukin‐7: An Interleukin for Rejuvenating the Immune System
Author(s) -
ASPINALL RICHARD,
HENSON SIAN,
PIDOLOPEZ JEFFREY,
NGOM PA TAMBA
Publication year - 2004
Publication title -
annals of the new york academy of sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.712
H-Index - 248
eISSN - 1749-6632
pISSN - 0077-8923
DOI - 10.1196/annals.1297.021
Subject(s) - immune system , interleukin , interleukin 15 , interleukin 1β , immunology , medicine , cytokine
A bstract : Infection of an individual (aged 20‐30 years) by a virus will cause a response from the T (thymus derived) lymphocytes of which there are approximately 3 × 10 11 . If the individual has not met the virus before, the response will come from the naive T cell subset (50 ± 10% of the total T cell pool at this age) containing recent thymic emigrants produced from the thymus at approximately 10 8 per day. Their antigen‐specific receptor has a defined specificity governed by the conformation of its two chains (α and β), and the repertoire of specificities is somewhere in the region of 2 × 10 7 to 10 8 . A successful response leads to clonal expansion and the generation of memory T cells to the infecting agent.