Phenotypical and Functional Characterization of Cytotoxic Unconventional T-Cells

During the last two decades, the immunology field has been focused on the study of conventional T-cells, leading to important advances in identification of specific subsets involved in promoting and suppressing immune response in patients with cancer, autoimmune disease or transplanted patients. In these recent years, the research on unconventional subset of CD4^-CD8^- double-negative T-cells is growing. DNTs are a unique subset of T-cells characterized by being CD4^-CD8^-CD3⁺ and express either ß or α T-cell receptors (TCR). In this chapter, we describe the methods used to phenotypically characterize and isolate these cells in order to study their functional profile.