Perspectives
Nature Reviews Immunology 6, 79-84 (January 2006) | doi:10.1038/nri1749
Opinion: Co-evolution of a primordial peptide-presentation system and cellular immunity
Thomas Boehm1 About the author
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Abstract
How did early vertebrates survive when their lymphocytes began to use antigen receptors with random specificities, despite their potential for extensive self-reactivity? Here, I propose that the quality-control mechanisms that tame self-reactivity in the adaptive immune system were derived, at least in part, from an ancient mechanism that guided sexual selection on the basis of evaluating genetic relatedness.
Author affiliations
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Thomas Boehm is at the Department of Developmental Immunology, Max-Planck Institute of Immunobiology, Stübeweg 51, D-79108 Freiburg, Germany.
Email: boehm@immunbio.mpg.de
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