Polarity and lymphocyte fate determination

Polarity within lymphocytes has been recognized to regulate a variety of processes, including migration, signaling, and the execution of effector function. It has been recently proposed, however, that this polarized behavior may also serve a different purpose in lymphocytes that have not yet encountered their foreign antigen - to coordinate asymmetric cell division. Asymmetric division is an evolutionarily conserved mechanism allowing a single cell to give rise to two distinct daughter cells from inception. In this review, recent findings in polarity and asymmetric division in lymphocytes are discussed.