The Fourth Way? Harnessing Aggressive Tendencies in the Thymus

During late stages of thymic development, T cells must chose between different fates, dictated by their TCR specificity. Typically, this is thought of as a choice between three alternatives (being positive selection for useful T cells vs negative selection or neglect for harmful or useless T cells). However, there is growing evidence for a fourth alternative, in which T cells are positively selected by agonist ligands, which would normally be expected to induce T cell deletion. In this review, we will discuss where and when agonist selection is induced and whether this should be considered as a novel form of thymic selection or as an alternative differentiation state for Ag-exposed T cells.