The mucosal immune system

This article outlines the lymphoid structures and cell types important in the intestinal immune response. Particular attention is paid to differences between rodents and man where there appears to be fundamental differences in the sources of the T and B cells which populate the mucosa. The majority of the data still suggest that Peyer's patches are the inductive site of mucosal immunity and the mucosa (lamina propria and epithelium) is the effector site, but there is growing realization that mucosal immune responses can occur in the absence of Peyer's patches and that antigen sampling may also occur in the lamina propria.