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Low availability of glucose in tumors negatively affects the activity of tumor-infiltrating T cells. Loss of T cell function under these conditions is mediated by the microRNAs miR-101 and miR-26a, which target expression of the methytransferase EZH2 and thereby diminish the expression of anti-tumor cytokines.
Understanding cytotoxic T cells has been a major focus of immunology research for decades. Proteomic profiling of these cells now brings them into unprecedented and revealing focus.
Immune responses are characterized by the concerted actions of both effector mechanisms and regulatory mechanisms. Signaling via the transcription factor STAT1 downstream of receptors for interferons and interleukin 27 (IL-27) can suppress type 2 immune responses induced by group 2 innate lymphoid cells (ILCs).
Ginhoux and colleagues discuss how recent advances in macrophage development and functional diversity indicate a multidimensional concept of macrophage ontogeny, activation and function.
In addition to their role in systemic innate immunity, macrophages have important tissue-specific roles. In this Review, Jung and colleagues discuss how differentiation and tissue-specific activation of macrophages are regulated.
Gomez Perdiguero and Geissmann discuss the origin of tissue macrophages as a layered system composed of resident macrophages originating mostly from yolk-sac progenitor cells and transitory myeloid cells that originate and renew from bone marrow hematopoietic stem cells.
Glass and Natoli review recent advances in the understanding of mechanisms underlying priming and signal-dependent activation of macrophages, and discuss the impact of genetic variation on these processes.
Macrophages are essential components of mammalian tissues. In this Review, Okabe and Medzhitov discuss the emerging views of macrophage biology from evolutionary, developmental and homeostatic perspectives.
Small, soluble, ubiquitous ligands are difficult to visualize. Schwab and colleagues have created a functional receptor reporter that gauges the in vivo concentration, location and biological action of sphingolipids.
The transcription factor Nr4a1 can negatively regulate norepinephrine production in the context of neuroinflammation and thereby prevent the ensuing neuroinflammatory cascade in a mouse model of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.
Mitochondria can contribute to an increase in the amount of phagosomal reactive oxygen species and thereby promote the effective killing of bacteria. Study of mice deficient in Mst1 and Mst2 reveals a role for these kinases in recruiting mitochondria to phagosomes.
Docking of T cell antigen receptors (TCRs) engaging complexes of peptide and major histocompatibility complex has shown the same diagonal orientation and polarity. A new study demonstrating that TCRs from regulatory T cells bind with reversed polarity challenges this dogma.
The TH17 subset of helper T cells drives emphysema in smokers, but how these cells are elicited remains unknown. A study now links the microRNA miR-22 and the histone deacetylase HDAC4 to regulation of the activation of antigen-presenting cells after exposure to smoke.
While most studies of T lymphocytes have focused on peptide-MHC-reactive T cells, many other types of T cells do not fit this paradigm. Here Godfrey et al. review the immunology of such unconventional T cells.
Paradoxically, radiotherapy can reinforce immunosuppressive pathways that undermine anticancer immunosurveillance and treatment efficacy. Irradiation induces Langerhans cells to migrate from the skin to lymph nodes, where they stimulate regulatory T cells.
Immature B lymphocytes and T lymphocytes assemble antigen receptor–encoding genes in lineage- and developmental stage–specific fashion. New findings show that pre-B cells use specialized locus-specific epigenetic mechanisms to promote recombination of the locus encoding the immunoglobulin κ-chain (Igk) and κ-chain+ B cell development.
The transcriptional regulator TCF-1 marks rare progenitor cells in adult bone marrow that have lost the potential to develop into the lymphocyte lineage but can give rise to all innate lymphoid cell lineages.
