The robustness of the vertebrate immune system is due in no small part to its diversity. Protection against infection comes from interactions among our enormously diverse lymphocyte repertoires and many different cytokines, chemokines and antigen-presenting cells, resulting in both cellular and humoral immune responses. The price for such diversity, however, is self reactivity, so our immune systems must also battle to avoid unwanted autoimmune responses. This month we celebrate this diversity by touching on a number of these components in an issue that is sure to have something for everyone.
James Di Santo and colleagues tackle the subject of diversity on page 703 as they examine the evidence for natural killer (NK)-cell subsets with specialized functions in humans and mice. NK cells express activating receptors, including NKG2D (NK group 2, member D), which recognizes numerous stress-inducible host proteins. In their Opinion article on page 737, Robert Eagle and John Trowsdale discuss why there are so many ligands for this one receptor.
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