Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Journal Club
  • Published:

NRI AT 20: EVOLUTION

Which came first, T cells or B cells?

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 21, pages 616–617 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

After the discovery in the 1960s of developmentally separate but functionally intertwined T and B lymphocyte lineages in birds and mammals, the question often asked was: which came first, T cells or B cells? A quick answer was not forthcoming as sharks, the most basal jawed vertebrates available, proved to have both T cells and B cells as well as the essential components required for their development and function, such as antigen-specific receptors, recombinase-activating genes, and MHC class I and class II molecules.

Owing to a lack of earlier jawed vertebrates to study, attention turned to lampreys and hagfish, as these jawless vertebrates were considered the most basal vertebrates. Lampreys could indeed reject allografts, albeit slowly, and they made specific agglutinins following immunization with foreign erythrocytes. Disappointingly, the search for antibodies and other cardinal features of adaptive immunity proved fruitless. However, the subsequent finding that a population of small round cells in lamprey haematopoietic tissue expressed Spi-B was tantalizing, because this transcriptional factor was known to be important for murine B cell development, hinting that lampreys could have bona fide lymphocytes.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

Original articles

  • Mayer, W. E. et al. Isolation and characterization of lymphocyte-like cells from a lamprey. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 99, 14350–14355 (2002)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Pancer, Z. et al. Somatic diversification of variable lymphocyte receptors in the agnathan sea lamprey. Nature 430, 174–180 (2004)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Alder, M. N. et al. Diversity and function of adaptive immune receptors in a jawless vertebrate. Science 310, 1970–1973 (2005)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Bajoghli, B. et al. A thymus candidate in lampreys. Nature 470, 90–94 (2011)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hirano, M. et al. Evolutionary implications of a third lymphocyte lineage in lampreys. Nature 501, 435–438 (2013)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA

    Max Cooper

Authors
  1. Max Cooper
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Max Cooper.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Cooper, M. Which came first, T cells or B cells?. Nat Rev Immunol 21, 616–617 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-021-00593-0

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-021-00593-0

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing