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Carl Figdor and colleagues propose that delivering cancer immunotherapy in the context of engineered three-dimensional scaffolds may boost anticancer immunity. The synthetic scaffolds, which can be linked to immunomodulatory factors, can act as immune niches to support the priming and maintenance of antitumour immune responses.
In this Review, the authors describe how type 2 immune responses drive tissue repair and fibrosis. They explain how these responses are crucial for repairing damaged tissue but can also lead to pathological outcomes if not properly regulated.
Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) have attracted much attention from the immunology community in recent years. This Review discusses the contribution of ILCs to different inflammatory diseases and the potential for targeting ILCs therapeutically in these settings.
New technologies that enable the profiling of single cells using next-generation sequencing offer an unbiased approach for studying immune cell diversity.
Diversity-generating immune strategies can act across the whole genome or be targeted to specific loci, with different consequences for host–pathogen co-evolution.
As leukocytes travel in the bloodstream, navigate through tissues and mediate effector functions, their behaviour is influenced by mechanical forces. In this Review, Morgan Huse explains how mechanical force regulates receptor activation, cell migration, intracellular signalling and intercellular communication.
This Review considers how forkhead box protein P3 (FOXP3) — the key transcription factor of regulatory T (Treg) cells — is regulated both at the transcriptional level and through post-translational modifications. The authors explain how FOXP3 interacts with other molecules to induce and maintain Tregcell populations, and they discuss the potential of therapeutically targeting FOXP3 in the context of human disease.
Tuberculosis (TB) is a heterogeneous disease: most infections are asymptomatic, but some infected individuals develop active symptomatic disease. This Review describes how features of the host immune response, granulomas and the mycobacteria contribute to the varied outcomes of TB infection.
The actin cytoskeleton of B cells is extensively coupled to B cell receptor (BCR) signalling pathways. This Review summarizes recent evidence that indicates that actin orchestrates BCR signalling at the plasma membrane, and discusses the role of the cytoskeleton in antigen presentation, affinity maturation and the functional specialization of B cells.
Does mitochondrial metabolism simply support the bioenergetic and biosynthetic needs of committed immune cells, or does it also control their fate? In this Review, Chandel and colleagues explore variations in mitochondrial metabolism across different immune cells and discuss how mitochondria can act as important signalling organelles to dictate immune cell function.
This Review examines accumulating evidence that translation arrest and stress granule formation can have antiviral properties through several mechanisms that are not limited to direct effects on the translation of viral proteins.
Why are newborns more vulnerable to infection? Here, the authors explain that it is not the immaturity of the immune system per se, but the unique regulation of immune responses in early life that limits immunity to infection yet allows safe developmentin uteroand the accommodation of microbial colonization at birth.
Although healthy pregnancies were traditionally considered to require an anti-inflammatory state, emerging evidence suggests that inflammation is important for a healthy pregnancy. Here, the authors discuss how the immune response varies throughout the main stages of pregnancy, and they consider how bacterial and viral infections can affect immune responses at the maternal–fetal interface.
Recent advances in imaging techniques and genetic tools have rapidly increased our understanding of the niches that maintain adult haematopoietic stem cells, including the constituent cell types and the factors that directly or indirectly regulate these niches.
Changes in the composition of the microbiota — also known as dysbiosis — are important contributors to inflammatory diseases. In this Review, the authors explore how disruptions in fungal communities can influence host immunity, and how the immune system has evolved to distinguish between fungal infection and dysbiosis.
In this Review, the authors describe the transcriptional and post-transcriptional mechanisms that determine the functional specification of myeloid cells and discuss how mature cells of the myeloid lineage can react to the same danger signal with different, highly specific responses.
Defects in the non-canonical pathway of NF-κB activation are associated with severe immune deficiencies, and aberrant activation of this pathway can cause autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Here, the author investigates the activation, signalling mechanisms and the biological function of the non-canonical NF-κB pathway.
This Review details how chemokines shape immune responses in the tumour microenvironment through their effects on immune cells, stromal cells and the tumour cells themselves. The authors discuss the potential of targeting chemokine networks for cancer therapy.
T helper 17 (TH17) cells have a well-known role in immune pathology, but they also have protective and homeostatic roles. A detailed understanding of their plasticity and how their opposing functions are regulated is crucial for enabling the therapeutic targeting of TH17 cells in disease settings.
