title: How does the immune response get started?
abstract: An effective adaptive immune response requires the prior induction of the regulatory effector T-helper (eTh). There are two competing models of how this cell is induced to effectors. Under the Associative Recognition of Antigen (ARA) or "two signal" model, the T-helper requires eTh in order to be induced to eTh, an "autocatalytic" process. Under the "costimulation" model eTh are induced by an antigen-unspecific signal derived from an "activated" APC. Under the ARA model the problem of the origin of the primer eTh is posed. A nonself antigen-independent pathway to eTh is proposed as well as an experiment to reveal its existence. In the costimulation framework no primer eTh need be postulated but it lacks a mechanism that, in the absence of ARA, accounts for the self-nonself discrimination and the determination of effector class.
authors.affiliation: Conceptual Immunology Group, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, 10010 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. cohn@salk.edu
authors.forename: Melvin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cohn
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000941:Antigens / Q000276:immunology; D007109:Immunity / Q000276:immunology*
chemical_list: D000941:Antigens