Immunology and Cell Biology

Lymphocyte Differentiation and Peripheral Maintenance

Lymphocytes play a key role in the fight against infections; they have strong effector mechanisms, and it is crucial to control their activity at all times to prevent the death of self-tissue or cells. Both protochordates and vertebrates have been shown to have these immune lineages.

All hematopoietic lineages, including lymphocytes, develop into long-term hematopoietic cells in the bone marrow. Adaptive immunological responses are carried out by B and T cells. Although natural killer (NK) cells are thought to have a lymphocytic ancestry, they grow quite differently from lymphocytes.