Apoptosis, or programmed cell death, plays a critical role in shaping the T cell repertoire, deleting unproductive as well as potentially autoreactive T cells. Our understanding of how thymocyte apoptosis is regulated is continually evolving, as new essential modulators of this process are discovered. A conundrum that remains, however, is how signaling through essentially the same receptors and cascades evokes distinct biological responses: death by neglect, positive or negative selection. We hypothesize that the immunological synapse (IS) may be critical to transducing survival signals during thymocyte development, and suggest that factors affecting IS assembly may also influence T cell selection.

中文翻译：

---

胸腺中的细胞死亡-一切都取决于接触。

凋亡或程序性细胞死亡在塑造T细胞库，删除非生产性以及潜在的自身反应性T细胞中起着至关重要的作用。随着人们发现胸腺细胞凋亡如何被调节，我们的理解也在不断发展。然而，仍然存在的难题是，通过基本相同的受体和级联反应发出的信号如何引起不同的生物学反应：因忽视，阳性或阴性选择而死亡。我们假设免疫突触（IS）可能在胸腺细胞发育过程中转导生存信号至关重要，并建议影响IS组装的因素也可能影响T细胞的选择。