The clinical importance of CD4+CD7- in human diseases

The CD7 antigen is a member of the immunoglobulin superfamily that expresses on the surface of all thymocytes, a majority of mature T cells, and also natural killer cells. Interestingly, under physiological and different pathological conditions, the loss of CD7 antigen occurred in the subset of CD4(+) memory T cells. Various functions have been proposed for CD7, including its role in the activation and intercellular adhesiveness of T cells. Several studies indicate that the number of CD4(+)CD7(-) T cells increases in diseases such as chronic inflammation and T-cell malignancies, these being skin inflammatory lesions. Therefore, this can be useful for the diagnosis of cancer cells, especially with reference to blood origin, treatment monitoring, and establishment of new therapies. Therefore, a comprehensive review could be useful to increase our knowledge about the clinical importance of these cells in human disease.