Autoimmune Diseases tagged posts

A team of researchers has found disrupting the interaction between cancer cells and certain immune cells is more effective at killing cancer cells than current immunotherapy treatments.

The findings, which include studies in cell lines and animal models, appeared in JCI Insight and focus on a protein called CD6 as a target for a new approach to immunotherapy.

Over the past two decades, new approaches to cancer treatment have been developed that block immune checkpoints, which are receptors on the surface of certain immune cells, like natural killer T cells. Cancer exploits these immune cells and render them dormant.

This treatment, called checkpoint inhibitor immunotherapy, gives these immune cells a chance to fight back...

Scientists discovered that AIM2 is important for the proper function of regulatory T cells, or Treg cells, and plays a key role in mitigating autoimmune disease. Treg cells are a seminal population of adaptive immune cells that prevents an overzealous immune response, such as those that occurs in autoimmune diseases.

Many molecules in our bodies help our immune system keep us healthy without overreacting so much that our immune cells cause problems, such as autoimmune diseases. One molecule, called AIM2, is part of our innate immunity — a defense system established since birth — to fight pathogens and keep us healthy...

Egress of sperm autoantigen from seminiferous tubules maintains systemic tolerance

Unexpected connection likely sabotaging vaccines designed to treat cancer. The University of Virginia School of Medicine has again shown that a part of the body thought to be disconnected from the immune system actually interacts with it, and that discovery helps explain cases of male infertility, certain autoimmune diseases and even the failure of cancer vaccines. Scientists developing such vaccines may need to reconsider their work in light of the new findings or risk unintentionally sabotaging their own efforts...

A newly discovered molecular mechanism could explain some autoimmune diseases. Credit: Image courtesy of Osaka University

While the immune system is crucial for protecting the body from infection and disease, prolonged activation can damage healthy tissue. After its activation, the immune system is shut off by regulatory T cells (Treg cells). Understanding the development of Treg cells is thought to be critical for combating autoimmune diseases. “The development of Treg cells in the thymus depends on super-enhancer establishment,” explains IFReC Professor Shimon Sakaguchi.

This super-enhancer establishment permits the expression of genes specific for Treg cell development...