Abstract
Apoptosis in the immune system is a fundamental process regulating lymphocyte maturation, receptor repertoire selection and homeostasis. Thus, death by apoptosis is as essential for the function of lymphocytes as growth and differentiation. This article focuses on death receptor-associated apoptosis and the role of CD95 (Apo-1/Fas)-mediated signalling in T-cell and B-cell development and during the course of an immune response. Gaining an insight into these processes improves our understanding of the pathogenesis of diseases such as cancer, autoimmunity and AIDS, and opens new approaches to rational treatment strategies.
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Acknowledgements
I thank my previous and present collaborators for help with the manuscript and the figures, particularly S. Baumann, K.-M. Debatin, T. Defrance, C. S. Falk, S. Kirchhoff, A. Krueger, B. Kyewski, M. Peter, I. Schmitz, A. Strecker and H. Walczak. I also thank H. Sauter and B. Pétillon for secretarial assistance. This work was funded by Deutsche Krebshilfe Dr Mildred Scheel Stiftung, German Israeli Cooperation in Cancer Research, AIDS grant German Federal Health Agency, Tumor Centre Heidelberg/Mannheim, BMBF Förderschwerpunkte 'Clinical-biomedical research' and 'Apoptosis', AIDS Verbund Heidelberg, Wilhelm-Sander Stiftung, Ernst-Jung-Stiftung, Förderschwerpunkt Transplantation, and the DFG. I apologize to all my colleagues who have done excellent work in the field and whose papers have not been quoted comprehensively — it was not possible to be encyclopedic in this exponentially growing field. I dedicate this article to the Basel Institute for Immunology, the closure of which was recently announced.
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Krammer, P. CD95's deadly mission in the immune system. Nature 407, 789–795 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35037728
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35037728
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