[The molecular mechanism of costimulatory signal for T cell activation]

The initiation of T cell responses against antigens requires two distinct signals. The first, the essential signal is the engagement of T cell receptor to antigen peptide in the context of MHC molecules on antigen presenting cells (APC). The presence of the second signal (costimulatory signal) determines whether responding T cells to be fully responsive or to be anergic (antigen specific nonresponsiveness). There are numbers of such costimulatory receptor/ligand pairs including B7/CD28: CTLA4, VCAM-1/VLA4, ICAM-1/LFA-1, HSA/unknown, and LFA-3/CD2. Among those ligand receptor pairs, B7/CD28 pathway is chosen and the molecular mechanism how T cell responses are regulated by B7/CD28 is discussed.