Intricacies of T Cell Activation and Signaling: Special Reference to CD8 T Cells

T cell signal transduction is not a linear pathway,but involves multiple components acting as a network.Though CD8 T cells are capable of being stimulatedwith a brief stimulus, recent studies have brought tofocus the persistence of signaling in T cells postsynaptic engagement. Though these signals are notstrong enough for direct detection, their effect onfunctional maturity of T cells is ascertained byfunctional assays. Different outcomes of activated Tcells do exhibit a certain level of hierarchy in theorder of activation and the strength of signalrequired for each. The intracellular signalingcomponents seem to form modules involved inpersistence of signaling in T cells. This bookprovides an overview of T cell activation focusing onCD8 T cells.

Ebenezer Chitra, Ph.D. worked on signal transduction in T cellsin National Institute of Immunology, New Delhi, India. The authoris currently working on signaling in cancer cells focusing onmetastasis in National Health Research Institutes, Taiwan, R.O.C.