Homeostasis and Self-Tolerance in the Immune System: Turning Lymphocytes off

✍ Scribed by Parijs, L. V.

• Book ID: 119975397
• Publisher: American Association for the Advancement of Science
• Year: 1998
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 431 KB
• Volume: 280
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0036-8075
• DOI: 10.1126/science.280.5361.243

✦ Synopsis

The immune system responds in a regulated fashion to microbes and eliminates them, but it does not respond to self-antigens. Several regulatory mechanisms function to terminate responses to foreign antigens, returning the immune system to a basal state after the antigen has been cleared, and to maintain unresponsiveness, or tolerance, to self-antigens. Here, recent advances in understanding of the molecular bases and physiologic roles of the mechanisms of immune homeostasis are examined.