Physiological significance of the lymphocytic cell coat.

The lymphocytes are coated by an external glycoprotein layer the so-called cell coat. There is some difference between the structure of the cell coat of T- and B-derived lymphocytes. The cell coat represents the chemical basis of some lymphocytic properties, i.e. their homing and electrophoretic mobility and it plays and important role in the expression of antigenicity of lymphocytes and the triggering of blast transformation.