I'm new to the bionet.immunology scene. Since there was nothing to read,
I decided to post a message and to see if there is anyone out there interested.
Perhaps we need an alternative way of thinking about the immune response.
We normally think of a response as an activation event to a foreign antigen.
Perhaps it is better to see it as an absence of a toleragenic signal. In
other words, tolerance is the default pathway. There is no such thing as a
"self" or a "non self" antigen. It is simply the manner in which it is
presented to the immune system. This is probably controled to a large degree
by a complex interaction of cytokines.
The TGFbeta knockout mouse is a case in point. If T cell receptor
repertoire is so important, why did this mouse come down with massive,
multifocal autoimmunity? This suggests that we all have a very great number
of self reactive clones, but that self tolerance is maintained by cytokines
such as TGFbeta.
I could go on for a while-- Is there any discussion?
