The molecular underpinnings of T cell exhaustion
Wednesday, March 15, 2017 - 12:31
in Health & Medicine
One reason we survive into adulthood is that cell-killing T cells usually recognize and eliminate cancerous or pathogen-infected cells. But prolonged overactivity of immune cells summoned to a tumor or infection site can render them useless to dispatch invaders, a cellular state immunologists call 'exhaustion.'