Hi Paul,
Th1/2 immunity is accepted although it is now considered to be a spectrum.
Therefore a response can be thought of as biased towards either Th1 or Th2
assuming the predominant cytokine driving that response is IL-12/IFN or IL-4
respectively. Some responses can have elements of both cytokine profiles and
a term I have often come across for this is Th0 (ie both IL-4 and IFN are
produced in significant ammounts). More recently it has become a little more
complicated with the identification of regulatory T-helper cells. These are
currenly defined as Th3 (producing TGF-beta1) and Tr1 (producing IL-10).
Another subset of regulatory cells that mediate their supressive effects
through cell contact rather than cytokines have been identified. These
supressive CD4+CD25+ cells are apparently anergic (although I always though
anergy was defined as 'functional unresponsiveness'). If you have a look
through the December issues of Current Opinion in Immunology from the past
few years there are some excellent reviews on this topic (try biomednet for
free back issues www.bmn.com ). Anyhow to cut a long story short Th1/2
immunity is still accepted however it is an oversimplification of a more
complex system.
Andrew Hall
University of Aberdeen
"Paul Jones" <jones.paul at btconnect.com> wrote in message
news:3BFC5B4F.F61F789F at btconnect.com...
> Is the hypothesis of separate human Th1 and Th2 t-cell lines
> still contraversial or is it now generally accepted in
> professional circles?
>> Take care,
> Paul
