You must not know these latest functions of T cells!

June 14, 2019: BIOON / T cell, as an important component and effector cell in the immune system, plays an indispensable role in resisting foreign pathogens such as bacteria and viruses and killing cancer cells Therefore, this paper brings you the latest research progress on T cells, and some learning progress with you! 【1】 Nat Immunol: during chronic viral infection, killer T cells cause cachexia to produce doi: 10.1038/s41590-019-0397-y in a new study, researchers from Austria, Germany, the United States and Switzerland identified the mechanism of viral infection leading to cachexia In mice infected with a specific virus, killer T cells cause fat tissue and weight loss, but how they do that is still unclear The results were published in the journal Nature Immunology To understand how infection promotes the production of cachexia, the researchers studied an established viral infection model: mice infected with lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), a rodent borne pathogen that can also infect humans They observed that within a week of exposure, the mice showed symptoms of human cachexia: they moved less, lost 20 percent of their weight, and some muscle and fat tissue disappeared The researchers conducted a number of experiments to understand what promotes cachexia production in their mouse models They first blocked "common and suspicious" proteins, such as IL-6 and TNF α, known to cause cachexia in mouse models But surprisingly, there was no improvement in tissue wasting in animals, suggesting a different mechanism at work Therefore, the researchers decided to study whether T cells might play a role because they are known to promote the pathological appearance related to LCMV infection in mice To their surprise, they found that when they injected antibodies against killer T cells a few days before LCMV infection, they were able to prevent weight loss in these mice: compared with uninfected healthy mice, mice with killer T cells removed showed little or no weight loss "This is one of the most surprising aspects," baazim recalled, because killer T cells - also known as CD8 + T cells - had not previously been linked to cachexia Further experiments show that killer T cells need to be activated by LCMV virus to trigger cachexia, and they need to be activated by specific antiviral cytokines However, it is not clear how killer T cells promote the production of cachexia Bergthaler said he believes that these T cells may be releasing a soluble factor to guide fat tissue to start burning fat, or they may first pass this information through another type of cell He said, "this is one of the major issues that we have left behind We know T cells work, but we don't know how they work "For now, the role of T cells in promoting cachexia seems to be limited to LCMV infection When the researchers repeated some experiments with influenza viruses, they found that T cells did not appear to cause cachexia The bergtler team is currently exploring whether this mechanism can prevent other virus infections Ezequiel Dantas, a postdoctoral researcher at Marcus Goncalves laboratory, an endocrinologist at the Medical College of will Cornell (not involved in the new study), pointed out that the research on cancer-related cachexia mainly focused on cytokines, such as IL-1, IL-6 and TNF α However, clinical interventions to block these cytokines have yet to show success - "which means we don't know everything," Dantas said For him, the new study suggests that cachexia may occur through other mechanisms that scientists have not yet understood Dantas added, "they're describing a whole new approach to weight loss that hasn't been explored before "[2] NAT commun: discovery of the mechanism controlling CD4 + T cells' metabolic response to TCR stimulation doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-10023-4 a new study by scholars from Swansea University shows that controlling metabolism at the cell level may help alleviate or cure a series of diseases Researchers at the University's School of Medicine published their findings in the journal Nature communications They studied how immune system cells use their metabolic pathways when they are activated in the laboratory Immune system cells are very important to fight against infection and cancer When these infected cells and anti-cancer cells, called CD4 + T cells, are challenged, they will generate enough energy to support their important cell functions, and create components of biosynthesis to divide and proliferate, so as to meet the challenge of infection The researchers found that these cells process nutrients by absorbing them and by metabolizing them When cells are activated, they change their metabolic pathways again to provide energy and the basic components needed to build cell function Photo source: Dr Nick Jones of Swansea University School of medicine, who led the study by cell, said: "it's important to understand how these cells are metabolized, because it could lead to new therapies to help treat infectious diseases and cancer "In this study, we examined the metabolic pathways used by immune cells and how a particular type of cell metabolism enables them to perform these important functions Our findings suggest that controlling metabolism may help fight various diseases or disorders 【3】 Cell: new T cells are related to type I diabetes Doi: 10 / 1016 / j.cell.2019.05.007 in a recent study, the research team recorded for the first time the existence of long suspected "x cells", which may play a key role in the development of type 1 diabetes The results were recently published in the journal Cell "Our results not only show the presence of X cells, but also have strong evidence that it is a major driver of autoimmune response in type 1 diabetes What's unique about the new cell we found is that it can act as a B cell and a T cell at the same time This may aggravate the autoimmune response, as one lymphocyte performs functions that usually require two synergies at the same time "Helper T cells can activate immature B cells to make them mature and differentiate into plasma cells, which produce antibodies to remove foreign bodies or memory cells from the body to" remember "antigens more quickly in biochemistry in response to future invasion On the other hand, due to the initial contact of immature T cells with antigens, killer cells or cytotoxic T cells directly attack the invaders they have been triggered However, when this process becomes chaotic, B cells and T cells search for and attack normal cells, thus inducing an autoimmune response For type 1 diabetes, scientists have long believed that the immune system will somehow confuse and target insulin As a result, misguided cell defense forces wage war on β cells in the hormone producing pancreas, greatly reducing the available dose and leading to characteristic hyperglycemia in diabetes "It is generally believed that insulin is seen as an antigen by T cells, which occurs when insulin recognizes and binds to APC However, our experiments show that it is a weak binding, which is unlikely to trigger a strong immune response leading to type 1 diabetes "Instead, the results of the new study show that when the second protein - a protein encoded by BCR present on X cells - replaces insulin, it binds more tightly so that it can trigger a 10000 fold higher intensity T-cell response 【4】 Nat commun: scientists took the first video of T cell receiving "education" doi: 10.1038/s41467-019-09727-4 immunologists from the University of Texas at Austin took the first video of T cell receiving "education" in the early stage The results were published in a recent issue of nature communications The study describes a new imaging technology that allows video recording, and the results are expected to fight autoimmune diseases such as type 1 diabetes One of the study's authors, associate professor Lauren Ehrlich, said: "T cells have the task of identifying and resisting all the different pathogens we encounter in our lives, but at the same time need to avoid attacking our own healthy tissues "These cells mature in the thymus, where they are" educated "and therefore do not attack healthy tissues and organs Ehrlich and postdoctoral researcher Jessica Lancaster captured a video of the educational process in the thymus of mice Using a pair of powerful lasers to excite with a short pulse and scan a piece of living tissue every 15 seconds to reconstruct the location, movement and intracellular signals of cells, they observed that with the development of T cells, other cells in the thymus help them carry out early "cognitive" education, and later, T cells need to learn to avoid attacking healthy parts of the body Ehrlich said using the new imaging technology to study T cells could improve human health For example, patients who received bone marrow transplantation lasted for weeks or months, the immune system was suppressed, the risk of autoimmune diseases was higher, and T cells of type 1 diabetes patients often attacked insulin producing pancreatic cells 【5】 Nature weighs heavily: Remolding regulatory T cells to improve the therapeutic effect of cancer doi: 10.1038/s41586-019-1215-2 although the treatment of using the immune system to fight against cancer has made significant progress in fighting against certain types of tumors, they are still ineffective for most cancer patients A new study by the center for immunology and inflammatory diseases (CIID) at Massachusetts General Hospital describes a way to reprogram regulatory T cells that normally inhibit immune responses to inflammatory cells, not only allowing but also enhancing antitumor immune responses Relevant research results were published in nature recently The focus of MGH research is CBM complex, a large protein cluster in immune cells, which helps to regulate their activation, proliferation and function Recent studies have revealed a key role of CBM complex in lymphocyte function It has been known that deletion of one of the three key proteins (CARMA1) will reduce the function of effector T cells The team tested the effect of CARMA1 deletion on Treg cells Their experiments showed that targeting CBM complex (either by deleting one or two copies of CARMA1 gene of Treg cells or by inhibiting another component of MALT1 complex with drugs) can cause Treg cells to secrete immune stimulating cytokine IFN γ It can selectively regulate the function of Treg in tumor and avoid the risk of autoimmune diseases caused by systemic Treg deficiency CBM targeting leads to inflammation of tumor tissue and increased infiltration of cytotoxic CD8 T cells and natural killer cells But it only reduced the tumor growth rate of melanoma and colon cancer mice model, because the activity of these immune cells is still limited by the immunocheckpoint protein PD-1 However, blocking the activity of PD-1 with antibodies can eliminate tumors inflamed by anti CBM therapy "Treg cells are more 'self reactive', which means they respond to our own 'self' tissue antigens," explains mempel, associate professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School