European journal of clinical investigation
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When analyzing human cellular immune responses, most focus is placed on the peripheral blood (PB) and, to a lesser extent, the lymph nodes. To date the spleen has not been analyzed with regard to its role in adaptive cellular immunity and more notably not with respect to T-cell immune responses. ⋯ Our findings show that the distribution of the different lymphocyte subsets is markedly different between the spleen and the PB, thus inferring an important and distinct role for the spleen in CD4(+) and CD8(+) T-cell activation.