Lets imagine this, ok? Say you attend a particular college or university. How would you recognize a student who attends the same? She or he would probably be travelling the same way, or be wearing the same t shirt with the college logo on it. How would you recognize a student who attends the same collge, but is registered for a programme in another faculty? Probably from the fact that you see him or her during the breaks, but not in one of your classes. Ok, so far, so good.
What about recognizing a student studying the same programme as you, but not a peer? Perhaps by their harried worried look if they are ahead of you.
By the above explanation, you can see that we use visual clues to identify people, even though we may not know them. Likewise, in the immune system, cells do not have their names printed on their surfaces, but they are still recognized by other cells in the vicinity. This is achieved by cell markers.
Now cells express all sorts of cell markers, for many different reasons. They are used to indicate the lineage of the cell, whether the cell is a naive or activated cell, or whether they are immature or mature.
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