Dendritic cells tagged posts

As people across the globe look forward to longer life expectancies, malignant cancers continue to pose threats to human health. The exploration and development of immunotherapy aims to seek new breakthroughs for the treatment of solid tumours.

The successful establishment of anti-tumour immunity requires the activation, expansion and differentiation of antigen-specific lymphocytes. This process largely depends on specific interactions between various T cells and antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in the body. However, existing tumour vaccines, such as neoantigen vaccines and various vector vaccines, all rely on random interactions with APCs in the body...

CD8+ T cells – known as “killer” T cells – are the assassins of the immune system. Once they are primed, they seek out and destroy other cells that are infected with virus or cells that are cancerous.

Priming involves dendritic cells – sentinels of the immune system. In an influenza infection in the lungs, for example, lung-migratory dendritic cells capture a piece of the viral antigen, and then migrate out of the lung to the place where naïve T cells reside, to present that antigen to the CD8+ T cells. This primes the T cells to know which cells to attack.

WEHI researchers have discovered a key differentiation process that provides an essential immune function in helping to control cancer and infectious diseases.

The research, published in Science Immunology, is the first to show a new factor — DC-SCRIPT — is required for the function a particular type of dendritic cell — called cDC1 — that is essential in controlling the immune response to infection.

Led by WEHI Professor Stephen Nutt, Dr Michael Chopin and Mr Shengbo Zhang, it defines the role for a new regulatory protein in producing dendritic cells...

A key step in the immune system’s response to allergens has been uncovered by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). They have shown that a neuropeptide called Substance P is released by certain neurons in the skin when they detect allergens, and that this substance is essential in the development of allergen-induced immune responses. This research could lead to the development of new and better methods to treat and prevent allergies.

How allergens are detected by the immune system had not been known...