Allergic contact dermatitis is the quintessential example of a delayed-in-time and T-cell–mediated immune response. In the last decade, many of the molecular events required to initiate (or block) such a response have been uncovered. Textbook and journal reviews have emphasized the costimulatory requirements, with less focus on the coinhibitory signals that are of equal importance in understanding this central event of adaptive immunity. To fill this gap, we offer a compendium of discoveries characterizing the ligand-receptor pairs inhibiting T-cell activation and of selected illnesses and therapeutic applications that illuminate their role in health and disease.
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