Locksley Richard M
Department of Medicine, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
J Exp Med. 2009 Aug 3;206(8):1643-6. doi: 10.1084/jem.20091442. Epub 2009 Jul 27.
The division of labor among two types of T helper (Th) subsets, first described over 20 yr ago, has been buffeted by the discovery of new subsets and new cytokines that can be coaxed out of T cells with increasing disregard for the subset of origin. Although Th17 cells and regulatory T (T reg) cells are widely accepted subsets, and others are being proposed, their plasticity is difficult to reconcile with the definitions of Th subsets as put forth in the initial description of Th1 and Th2 cells. A deeper molecular context will be required to reconcile the ever-increasing complexity of effector T cells.
两种辅助性T（Th）细胞亚群之间的分工早在20多年前就已被描述，但随着新亚群和新细胞因子的发现，这种分工受到了冲击，这些新亚群和新细胞因子可以从T细胞中诱导出来，且越来越不受起源亚群的限制。尽管Th17细胞和调节性T（Treg）细胞是被广泛认可的亚群，还有其他亚群也在被提出，但它们的可塑性很难与最初描述Th1和Th2细胞时提出的Th亚群定义相协调。需要更深入的分子背景来协调效应T细胞日益增加的复杂性。
