Antigen receptors and dendritic cells

Abstract

Several age-related alterations occurring in the immune system, especially in T cells and in B cells, may account for an increased susceptibility to infections, autoimmune diseases, and malignancies. In particular, the adaptive immune response has been shown to lose part of its diversity and its memory in old mice. However, whether dendritic cells, which play a central role in the initiation of the cellular immunity but are also involved in humoral immunity, participate qualitatively or quantitatively in immunosenescence remains to be determined.