Immunology

29 avril 2024 | 2h00 - 4h30 CET | En ligne

Abstract. The murine bone marrow has a central role in immune function and health as the primary source of leukocytes in adult mice. Laboratory mice provide a h

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The cGAS-STING pathway appears to contribute to dysregulated inflammation during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); however, inflammatory factors related to long COVID are still being investigated. In the present study, we evaluated the association of cGAS and STING gene expression levels and plasma IFN-α, TNF-α and IL-6 levels with COVID-19 severity in acute infection and long COVID, based on analysis of blood samples from 148 individuals, 87 with acute COVID-19 and 61 in the post-COVID-19 period. Quantification of gene expression was performed by real-time PCR, and cytokine levels were quantified by ELISA and flow cytometry. In acute COVID-19, cGAS, STING, IFN-α, TNF-α, and IL-6 levels were higher in patients with severe disease than in those with nonsevere manifestations (p < 0.05). Long COVID was associated with elevated cGAS, STING and IFN-α levels (p < 0.05). Activation of the cGAS-STING pathway may contribute to an intense systemic inflammatory state in severe COVID-19 and, after infection resolution, induce an autoinflammatory disease in some tissues, resulting in long COVID.

Summary. There is an intriguing dichotomy in the function of cytokine interleukin-15—at low levels, it is required for the homeostasis of the immune system, yet

Day of Immunology Celebrate your amazing immune system on the 29 April by attending events around Australia and New Zealand. Established in 2005 by the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS), the success of Day of Immunology led to it being celebrated worldwide since 2007.

Abstract. Transplanted organs carry donor immune cells into the recipient, the majority of which are tissue-resident macrophages (TRMs). The role they play

Plus de 30 ans après la dernière épidémie importante au Québec, la rougeole fait à nouveau les manchettes. Des chercheurs tentent de comprendre comment le virus réussit à anéantir l’immunité contre d’autres maladies.

Immune cells rely on transient physical interactions with other immune and non-immune populations to regulate their function1. To study these ‘kiss-and-run’ interactions directly in vivo, we previously developed LIPSTIC (labelling immune partnerships by SorTagging intercellular contacts)2, an approach that uses enzymatic transfer of a labelled substrate between the molecular partners CD40L and CD40 to label interacting cells. Reliance on this pathway limited the use of LIPSTIC to measuring interactions between CD4+ T helper cells and antigen-presenting cells, however. Here we report the development of a universal version of LIPSTIC (uLIPSTIC), which can record physical interactions both among immune cells and between immune and non-immune populations irrespective of the receptors and ligands involved. We show that uLIPSTIC can be used, among other things, to monitor the priming of CD8+ T cells by dendritic cells, reveal the steady-state cellular partners of regulatory T cells and identify germinal centre-resident T follicular helper cells on the basis of their ability to interact cognately with germinal centre B cells. By coupling uLIPSTIC with single-cell transcriptomics, we build a catalogue of the immune populations that physically interact with intestinal epithelial cells at the steady state and profile the evolution of the interactome of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus-specific CD8+ T cells in multiple organs following systemic infection. Thus, uLIPSTIC provides a broadly useful technology for measuring and understanding cell–cell interactions across multiple biological systems. A paper reports the development of a universal tool for studying cellular interactions in biological systems, and demonstrates its coupling with single-cell transcriptomics methods to provide insights into the biology of the interactions.

The human transferrin receptor (TfR) identified as an alternative receptor for SARS-CoV-2 infection in human cells. Human TfR, which is abundantly expressed…

CD4 T cells are the the best ?