Immunosurveillance by gamma delta T cells - lessons from the cancer field

The most common contemporary depiction of the immune response is an early innate response, mounted by myeloid cells, followed by a delayed adaptive lymphoid responses mounted by lymphocytes. This depiction is based on myriad compelling data sets and has made powerful predictions with biological and clinical relevance. Nonetheless, it seems incomplete. Thus, there are lymphocytes that respond very rapidly, commonly to self-encoded molecules over-expressed by dysregulated and/or transformed tissues and cells. The evidence for such “lymphoid stress-surveillance” by gamma delta T cells has been provided by animal models, and supports ongoing clinical investigations of the potential host-protect…