pubmed:abstractText |
CD8 alpha enhances the responses of antigen-specific CTL activated through TCR through binding MHC class I, favoring lipid raft partitioning of TCR, and inducing intracellular signaling. CD8 alpha is also found on dendritic cells and rat macrophages, but whether CD8 alpha enhances responses of a partner receptor, like TCR, to activate these cells is not known. TCR and FcR, use analogous or occasionally interchangeable signaling mechanisms suggesting the possibility that CD8 alpha co-activates FcR responses. Interestingly, CD8 alpha+ monocytes are often associated with rat models of disease involving immune-complex deposition and FcR-mediated pathology, such as arthritis, glomerulonephritis, ischaemia, and tumors. While rat macrophages have been shown to express CD8 alpha evidence for CD8 alpha expression by mouse or human monocytes or macrophages was incomplete.
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