Putting priming into perspective - from cellular heterogeneity to cellularplasticity

The concept of priming is widely used in cell biology and haas come to mean the functional enhancement of a given cell by cytokines. 'Primed' cells ha ve a number of other cellular alterations, although the relationship betwee n functional and phenotypical diversity has not been established. Here, Cla us Kroegel and colleagues discuss the dynamic nature of inflammatory-cell p riming, which might be part of a broader means of comprehending cell functi on in disease.