title: Single cell behavior in T cell differentiation.
abstract: Upon primary infection, naïve T cells that recognize their cognate antigen become activated, proliferate, and simultaneously differentiate into various subsets. A long-standing question in the field has been how this cellular diversification is achieved. Conceptually, diverse cellular output may either arise from every single cell or only from populations of naïve cells. Furthermore, such diversity may either be driven by cell-intrinsic heterogeneity or by external, niche-derived signals. In this review, we discuss how recently developed technologies have allowed the analysis of the mechanisms underlying T cell diversification at the single cell level. In addition, we outline the implications of this work on our understanding of the formation of immunological memory, and describe a number of unresolved key questions in this field.
authors.affiliation: Division of Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands; Center for Chronic Immunodeficiency (CCI), University Medical Center Freiburg and University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Jan C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Rohr
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology & Immunobiology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA.
authors.forename: Carmen
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Gerlach
authors.affiliation: Division of Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Lianne
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Kok
authors.affiliation: Division of Immunology, The Netherlands Cancer Institute, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Electronic address: t.schumacher@nki.nl.
authors.forename: Ton N
authors.initials: TN
authors.lastname: Schumacher
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D002454:Cell Differentiation / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D008213:Lymphocyte Activation / Q000276:immunology*; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000166:cytology* / Q000276:immunology*
keywords: T cell differentiation; asymmetric cell division; cell-extrinsic signals; cellular heterogeneity; population asymmetry; single-cell tracking