Robert L. Coffman Libros

The two major subsets of CD4+ helper T cells, designated Th1 and Th2, have quite different patterns of cytokine production and, as a consequence, have very different roles in immune responses. The articles in this volume review both basic and clinical studies of T cell heterogeneity, including: the mechanisms by which Th1 and Th2 cells develop and maintain their differences in cytokine production; the different roles of Th1 and Th2 cells in allergy, autoimmunity and infectious diseases; the prospects and strategies for therapeutic manipulation of Th1 and Th2 cells; and the control of Th1 and Th2 responses by regulatory T cell subsets. The volume should give the reader a view of the development and function of Th1 and Th2 cells and the attempts to treat immunological diseases with therapies directed towards altering the Th1/Th2 balance.

This volume offers a review of T-cell heterogeneity in man and experimental animals and the implications of this heterogeneity for infectious and autoimmune diseases. It has recently become clear that peripheral T cells, both of the CD4+ and CD8+ lineages, can be divided into multiple subsets based on function, cytokine production and surface phenotype. Several articles describe the control of differentiation of these subsets and the phenotypic markers that correlate with specific functions and differentiation stages. Other articles discuss the participation of T-cell subsets in parasitic and mycobacterial diseases, AIDS and autoimmune disease. They describe some of the clearest examples of infectious and autoimmune diseases in which different clinical forms are the result of different T-cell subsets responding to the pathogen. The last article is an extensive review of the mechanisms of delayed-type hypersensitivity, the basic manifestation of cell-mediated immunity. Taken together, these articles provide a cellular and biochemical basis for T-cell regulation of the fundamental dichotomy in immunology - cell-medicated versus humoral immunity.