Cloning CD8+ Cytolytic T Lymphocytes

CD8+ T lymphocyte cloning has resulted in many fundamental advances: structural elucidation of peptide-MHC recognition, spatiotemporal dissection of the thymic positive and negative selection processes and is further expected, TCRs being the key molecules controlling T cell activation, to provide us with molecular tools of immuno-therapeutical interest for infectious, tumor, and autoimmune diseases. However, cloning CD8+ T lymphocytes remains a relatively difficult enterprise. Cloning mouse CD8+ T lymphocytes that will be first consider is to some extend facilitated by our complete control of the in vivo priming process and the unlimited access we usually have to perfectly suited (syngeneic) antigen presenting cells. Cloning human CD8+ T lymphocytes is more difficult largely but not exclusively for ethical reasons.