In this month's issue we bring you articles that together reflect the diversity that exists in immunological research today and the need to examine the immune system at both the cellular and molecular levels. On page 95, Robert Welner, Rosana Pelayo and Paul Kincade take a look at early lymphocyte development and discuss how our understanding of the haematopoietic process with respect to B-cell genealogy has evolved with the advent of new animal models and marker systems. The traditional view of haematopoiesis is of a single developmental pathway for each major cell type with discrete developmental branch points. However, as discussed in this Review, the process of B-cell lymphopoiesis is much more flexible.
In addition, each stage of the development and function of immune cells must be tightly regulated. MicroRNAs (miRNAs), first described in Caenorhabditis elegans, are small non-coding RNAs that are thought to regulate gene transcription at the post-translational level by targeting mRNA for degradation or transcriptional repression. The Review article on page 120 provides an overview of the biogenesis and function of miRNAs in animal cells and discusses the recently described role of miRNAs in regulating the development of immune cells, in modulating innate and adaptive immune responses, and in host–pathogen interactions.
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