ReviewNature reviews. Immunology2012
Why must T cells be cross-reactive?
Review in Nature reviews. Immunology, 2012. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 336 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
336 citing papers in PubMed, 533 citations in OpenAlex.
- Discovery and engineering of bispecific TCR-mimic antibodies targeting peptide-HLA complex.mAbs · 2026Article
- Heart-specific T cell responses: from antigens to disease mechanisms.Nature reviews. Cardiology · 2026Review
- Beta Cell Stress to Epitope Diversification: Post-Translationally Modified Antigens in Type 1 Diabetes.Immunological reviews · 2026Review
- Calibrating T cell responsiveness through interactions with self.Nature reviews. Immunology · 2026Review
- Towards high-quality large-scale T cell receptor antigen specificity data: challenges and promises.Nature methods · 2026Article
- Predicting specificity of TCR-pMHC interactions using machine-learning and biophysical models.Cell systems · 2026Article
- MHCXGraph: a graph-based approach to detecting T-cell receptor cross-reactivity.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2026Article
- Structural T-Cell Receptor Analysis in the Age of Machine Learning.Immunological reviews · 2026Review
- T Cell Thoughts.Immunological reviews · 2026Review
- SARS-CoV-2-specific T cells cross-react with tumor-associated antigens via molecular mimicry.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Article
- Central T cell tolerance from sparse peptide sampling.Science advances · 2026Article
- Systematic analysis of CDR contacts and pairing constraints between T cell receptor αβ chains.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2026Article
- The Role of the T Cell Receptor Sequence in Shaping T Cell Functional Fate.Immunological reviews · 2026Review
- Non-canonical clonal expansion of autoreactive CD8Cell insight · 2026Article
- Ensembles ofbioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion in the naïve T Cell Receptor Repertoire.Immunological reviews · 2026Review
- Computational prediction of TCR cross-reactivity: principles, challenges and translational opportunities.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Review
- T cells in acute and chronic myocarditis: from diagnosis to treatment.European heart journal · 2026Review
- Cross-reactive tissue-resident memory T lymphocytes-concepts, evidence, and open questions.Journal of translational medicine · 2026Review
- Benchmarking TCR-pMHC structure prediction: a unified evaluation and CDR3-based functional insights.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2026Article
276 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Clonal selection theory proposed that individual T cells are specific for a single peptide-MHC antigen. However, the repertoire of αβ T cell receptors (TCRs) is dwarfed by the vast array of potential foreign peptide-MHC complexes, and a comprehensive system requires each T cell to recognize numerous peptides and thus be cross-reactive. This compromise on specificity has profound implications because the chance of any natural peptide-MHC ligand being an optimal fit for its cognate TCR is small, as there will almost always be more-potent agonists. Furthermore, any TCR raised against a specific peptide-MHC complex in vivo can only be the best available solution from the naive T cell pool and is unlikely to be the best possible solution from the substantially greater number of TCRs that could theoretically be produced. This 'systems view' of TCR recognition provides a plausible cause for autoimmune disease and substantial scope for multiple therapeutic interventions.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.