Role in Disease Pathogenesis
See also: Hepatitis B virusDuring hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection cytotoxic T cells play an important pathogenetic role. They contribute to nearly all of the liver injury associated with HBV infection and, by killing infected cells and by producing antiviral cytokines capable of purging HBV from viable hepatocytes, cytotoxic T cells also eliminate the virus. Recently platelets have been shown to facilitate the accumulation of virus-specific cytotoxic T cells into the infected liver. Recently, cytotoxic T cells have been implicated in the progression of arthritis: depletion of knee joint cartilage macromolecules such as glycosaminoglycans by cytotoxic T cells and macrophages has been observed in a rat model of the disease.
Read more about this topic: Cytotoxic T Cell
Famous quotes containing the words role in, role and/or disease:
“If women’s role in life is limited solely to housewife/mother, it clearly ends when she can no longer bear more children and the children she has borne leave home.”
—Betty Friedan (20th century)
“Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.”
—Jean Cocteau (1889–1963)
“‘Tis the common disease of all your musicians that they know no mean, to be entreated, either to begin or end.”
—Ben Jonson (c. 1572–1637)