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Antigen receptor-directed suicide plays an important role in the elimination of potentially autoaggressive immature T cells during thymic differentiation. Here we demonstrated evidence for a second pathway of receptor-directed suicide in mature T cells that is missing in a mutant strain (gld) of mice with an "autoimmune" lymphoproliferative syndrome. The defect is evident within the gld activated T cell and does not require the presence of an antigen-presenting cell for its expression. Receptor-driven suicide is intact in immature T cells of animals with this mutation. These results support the significance of receptor-directed suicide in the mature T cell compartment and suggest that the immune system may use three independent pathways for regulating programmed cell death in shaping and controlling the immune response.
Russell et al. (Wed,) studied this question.