Regulation of apoptosis and replicative senescence in CD8+ T cell following acute viral infection.
Viral infections are characterised by a large expansion of CD8+ effector T cells. Once generated, these T cells must be cleared and homeostasis re-established. In this review we describe two mechanisms, apoptosis and replicative senescence which are thought to play a vital role in this process. Apoptosis clears the unwanted T cells at the end of an immune response whereas replicative senescence prevents unlimited expansion of T cells. For successful memory to be produced T cells must avoid apoptosis and avoid replicative senescence.
Department of Clinical Immunology, Royal Free and University College of Medical School, London, UK. f.plunkett@rfc.ucl.ac.uk
F J
FJ
Plunkett
M V
MV
Soares
M
M
Salmon
A N
AN
Akbar
D000818:Animals; D017209:Apoptosis / Q000502:physiology*; D002455:Cell Division / Q000502:physiology; D016922:Cellular Senescence / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D050378:T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology / Q000821:virology; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000276:immunology / Q000473:pathology*