In light of recent data showing that both helper and cytotoxic T cells can detect even a single molecule of an agonist peptide-MHC, alphabeta T cells are clearly a type of sensory cell, comparable to any in the nervous system. In addition, endogenous (self) peptides bound to MHCs are not just important for thymic selection, but also play an integral role in T cell activation in the response to foreign antigens. With the multitude of specificities available to most T cells, they can thus be considered as a sensory organ, trained on self-peptide-MHCs and primed to detect nonself.

中文翻译：

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T细胞是一种自我参照的感觉器官。

根据最近的数据显示，辅助T细胞和细胞毒性T细胞甚至都可以检测到激动剂肽MHC的单个分子，字母T细胞显然是一种感觉细胞，与神经系统中的任何一种都一样。此外，与MHC结合的内源性（自身）肽不仅对胸腺选择很重要，而且在T细胞活化中对外源抗原的应答中也起着不可或缺的作用。由于大多数T细胞都具有多种特异性，因此可以将它们视为感觉器官，接受自身肽MHC的训练，并可以进行非自身检测。