CD3
From haematologyetc.co.uk
- Summary
- CD3 is a reliable marker of T cell lineage. Loss of expression is rare in T cell malignancies, and aberrant expression by other lineages is very infrequent.
- Surface CD3 is acquired during thymic maturation, but is preceded by expression in cytoplams, smaking cytoplasmic CD3 is very useful in the diagnosis of acute T cell leukaemia.
- On more mature neoplasms CD3 will be detected on the cell surface.
Normal expression and function
CD3 is not a single molecule, rather it is a multi-molecular complex (two epsilon (ε) chains, a gamma (γ) chain, a delta (δ) chain and a zeta (ζ) chain) that play a pivitol role in assembling and activating the T cell receptor. It is first expressed in the cytoplasm becoming expressed on as they mature. As an essential TCR component it is expressed almost exclusively by mature T cells.
Diagnostic role
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Other relevant information:
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