A functional immune system requires the selection of T lymphocytes expressing receptors
that are major histocompatibility complex restricted but tolerant to self-antigens. This …

Immunoglobulins are the major secretory products of the adaptive immune system. Each is
characterized by a distinctive set of glycoforms that reflects the wide variation in the number …

Interleukin-1 is a cytokine with potent inflammatory and immune-amplifying effects, mainly
produced by macrophages during defensive reactions. In mammals, IL-1 is a superfamily of …

Cells acquire their ultimate identities by activating combinations of transcription factors that
initiate and sustain expression of the appropriate cell type-specific genes. T cell …

A clonally diverse anticipatory repertoire in which each lymphocyte bears a unique antigen
receptor is the central feature of the adaptive immune system that evolved in our vertebrate …

Subclasses of immunoglobulin G (IgG) display substantial differences in their ability to
mediate effector responses, contributing to variable activity of antibodies against microbes …

Reptiles are ectothermic amniotes, providing the key link between ectothermic anamniotic
fishes and amphibians, and endothermic amniotic birds and mammals. A greater …

Adaptive immunity is mediated through numerous genetic and cellular processes that
generate favourable somatic variants of antigen-binding receptors under evolutionary …

Although jawless vertebrates are apparently capable of adaptive immune responses, they
have not been found to possess the recombinatorial antigen receptors shared by all jawed …

V (D) J recombination proceeds through a series of protein: DNA complexes mediated in
part by the RAG1 and RAG2 proteins. These proteins are responsible for sequence-specific …