Cytotoxic T cell's primary responsibility is to kill infected cells. I'll start from the beginning.

From a progenitor cell in the bone marrow, the T cell will begin maturation in the thymus. In the thymus it begins in the cortex as a pro T cell. In this stage it is considered a double negative cell (I'll explain more later). Here it has the beta chain (V,D,J's) rearranged. Next it becomes a pre T cell. By now the T cell has finished rearranging its beta chain and now begins rearrangement of its alpha chain.

Both the beta and alpha chain under go allelic exclusion. This prevents one of the alleles from being expressed (this would be mom's or dad's). If the pro T cell made a beta chain from your mothers allele, your father's allele would be suppressed. This is an important feature, otherwise you could accidentally make a stop codon and that would stop your T cell development right there.

So as a pre T cell it continues to proliferate and it upregulates CD3, CD4 and CD8. You have two types of T cells that it can mature to. CD4 and CD8. A CD4 T cell is also known as a helper T cell and a CD8 T cell is also called a cytotoxic T cell. They function very differently but at this point the T cell doesn't know which one it will become. Therefore it is at this juncture a double positive thymocyte.

The next phase is an immature T cell. Here the alpha chains have finished rearrangement (also allelic exclusion applies here). Now the cell will undergo positive and negative selection. The immature T cell is tested by thymic epithelial cells (TEC). TEC's have a unique feature that belongs to professional antigen presenting cells (APC's) and that is expressing both MHC class I and MHC class II on its cell surface. An immature T cell that can bind to a TEC's MHC class I or MHC class II is positively selected to continue maturation. This is an important step because ensures that your T cells are specific for your body's MHCs. However, if the immature sticks too strongly, it will be neglected and eventually die. You don't want a mature T cell that binds way too strongly on your own cells either. Those that don't bind at all will also die by neglect. The strict standards ends up killing about 95% of all maturing T cells. The immature T cell that was capable of binding to MHC class I molecule is signaled to become a CD8 or cytotoxic cell and the immature T cell that was capable of binding to MHC class II molecule is signaled to become a CD4 or helper T cell.

Now that your immature T cells have been primed to your own body, it will undergo negative selection. In this process it is exposed to other types of cells, dendritic cells and macrophages. Dendritic cells and macrophages are part of your APCs. If the T cell binds too strongly it will also die by neglect.

Congratulations! Your immature T cell is now a mature naive T cell. It is now ready to leave your thymus and it will be stored mainly in your lymph nodes to await an infection.

Now that your cytotoxic T (CD8) cell has been made, it waits in your lymph node for an infection. A dendritic cell (remember these guys? they are present all over your body) will come in through an afferent lymphatic vessel from the source of infection. An important feature of cytotoxic T cells is that it targets cytoplasmic infection, or more specifically viruses. Generally viruses proliferate within a cell and antibodies cannot get to them if the virus is residing inside one of your own cells. So the dendritic cell gets infected and travels through the afferent lymphatic vessel into your lymph nodes. Here waits all of your adaptive immunity responses. It's an ambush! Your cytotoxic cells have been waiting for this moment. The cytotoxic cell that is specific for the antigen that is presented on the dendritic cell latches on. There are two signals that activate the cytotoxic (CD8) cell. B7 from the dendritic cell attaches to CD28 on the cytotoxic T cell and CD8 attaches to the dendritic cell. The cytotoxic cell is now activated and it is now on a mission to destroy. It secretes IL-2 which binds to itself. This is an autocrine function that signals the cytotoxic cell to replicate like crazy. Your army travels out through the efferent lymphatic vessel into your blood stream. Eventually it arrives to the cells that are infected. It is capable of binding to the same antigens that it first recognized from the dendritic cell that brought it inside initially. It latches on with CD8 and releases its' weapons. Perforin is released which punches holes into the cell and granzymes are also released which induces apoptosis (cell death). Memory T cells are also made to fight against future infection. These are long lasting cells. Your other T cells (remember them?) the helper T cells come by and deactivate your cytotoxic T cells with FasR and CTLA-4.

Hope that helps.

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