Real-Time Discrimination of Immune Cell Function and Fate beyond Immune Cell Characterization:Real-Time Discrimination of Immune-Cell Function and Fate

摘要

The immune system is continually surveilling the body—looking for pathogens, xenobiot-ics, and other non-self signals. The various cell types which constitute the immune system are, thus, incredibly dynamic and capable of upregulating the processes that go into handling these insults on a time scale of minutes to hours. Many cell types in this system are capable of activation to secrete cytokines, rapidly proliferate, or otherwise communicate to surrounding cells that there is a pathogen to consider. Upon clearance of the pathogen, the cell population must then contract in a controlled manner. Furthermore, in some cell populations (e.g., T cells) a subset of the cells are retained as long-lived memory cells to protect and prime the system for future insults. To enable this dynamic function,immune cells integrate internal cellular signals, cues from the tissue microenvironment, and cellular metabolic activity.