Regulation and functional significance of T-cell subsets

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This volume offers a review of T-cell heterogeneity in man and experimental animals and the implications of this heterogeneity for infectious and autoimmune diseases. It has recently become clear that peripheral T cells, both of the CD4+ and CD8+ lineages, can be divided into multiple subsets based on function, cytokine production and surface phenotype. Several articles describe the control of differentiation of these subsets and the phenotypic markers that correlate with specific functions and differentiation stages. Other articles discuss the participation of T-cell subsets in parasitic and mycobacterial diseases, AIDS and autoimmune disease. They describe some of the clearest examples of infectious and autoimmune diseases in which different clinical forms are the result of different T-cell subsets responding to the pathogen. The last article is an extensive review of the mechanisms of delayed-type hypersensitivity, the basic manifestation of cell-mediated immunity. Taken together, these articles provide a cellular and biochemical basis for T-cell regulation of the fundamental dichotomy in immunology - cell-medicated versus humoral immunity.