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Science 21 May 1999:
Vol. 284. no. 5418, pp. 1283 - 1285
DOI: 10.1126/science.284.5418.1283
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Perspectives

Also see the archival list of Science's Compass: Enhanced Perspectives

IMMUNOLOGY:
Enhanced: Instruction, Selection, or Tampering with the Odds?

Robert L. Coffman and Steven L. Reiner

The instruction and selection hypotheses have been variously invoked by opposing camps of immunologists to explain how cells in the immune system know which lineage they are supposed to become. For example, when stimulated by antigen to differentiate, how do T helper cells know whether to become TH1 or TH2 cells? In their Perspective, Coffman and Reiner discuss new findings that seem to support the selection hypothesis. But they provide an alternative interpretation, proposing that perhaps immune cell differentiation depends on both instruction and selection.

R. L. Coffman is in the Department of Immunobiology, DNAX Research Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA. E-mail: Coffman{at}dnax.org. S. L. Reiner is in the Gwen Knapp Center for Lupus and Immunology Research, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, USA. E-mail: sreiner{at}midway.uchicago.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)