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Recent advances in our understanding of the mechanisms of atherosclerosis, which is an inflammatory disease that involves the formation of plaques in the arteries, indicate that the immune response can both promote and reduce disease.
Defensins are important effectors of innate immunity. Recent studies have elucidated the mechanisms of their antiviral activity, indicating that they have both direct effects on viruses and indirect effects on target cells. In addition, defensins have immunomodulatory activities.
Members of the carcinoembryonic-antigen-related cell-adhesion molecule (CEACAM) family are involved in intercellular binding interactions affecting various normal and pathogenic processes. This article provides an overview of the role of CEACAMs in immunity, focusing on the function of CEACAM1.
Studies of microbial superantigens that target B cells provide better understanding of B-cell-receptor interactions and supraclonal dysregulation. Their ability to induce tolerance that subverts host defences may provide new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of B-cell-mediated autoimmune and neoplastic diseases.
Bioluminescence imaging is emerging as a useful tool for visualizing immune reactions. Importantly, this technique allows researchers to pinpoint the location of cells at numerous time points in intact animals. This is proving particularly useful in the study of graft-versus-host disease.
Signal-regulatory proteins (SIRPs) are members of the paired-receptor family, which regulate and fine-tune immune responses. Their rolein vivois influenced by the different affinities of the SIRPs for their ligands and by their expression levels.
With the search for an HIV vaccine still ongoing, attention is turning towards developing topical prevention strategies that prevent HIV transmission. This Review describes the rationale behind the choice of targets for such strategies and how their clinical development is progressing.
Statins are best known as cholesterol-lowering drugs but increasing evidence indicates that they might be an effective treatment for autoimmune disease. Their ability to inhibit post-translational protein prenylation could be key to their immunomodulatory effects.
Although the discontinuation of a clinical trial of amyloid-β vaccination of subjects with Alzheimer's disease led us to reassess the use of immune-based therapy for this disease, subsequent work involving antibody and cell-based therapies looks promising.
How does a T-cell response to viral infection inform us of the state of the disease? Patterns of cytokine production by T cells could hold the key and might be useful markers for monitoring virus-associated disease in the clinic.
This Review discusses recent studies that have identified ways to increase the antitumour response of autologous tumour-reactive cells adoptively transferred to individuals with cancer, such as the use of lymphodepleting regimens before adoptive cell transfer.
The use of antibodies as therapeutic agents is a big business, with 18 now approved for use in the United States. How they are generated and optimized to increase efficacy and safety is the focus of extensive research efforts, which are reviewed here.
Clinical trials of reagents that target B cells in individuals with autoimmune disease, in particular rheumatoid arthritis, have yielded highly promising results. Might such an approach bring us closer to the goal of re-establishing immune tolerance in these individuals?
The caspase family has traditionally been divided into two groups: those involved in regulating apoptosis and those involved in regulating inflammation. However, as discussed in this Review, recent data indicate that capases can also regulate immune-cell development, activation and differentiation.
Regulatory T cells have a role in suppressing immune responses against tumours. Here, Weiping Zou reviews the nature of these cells, how they affect current therapeutic protocols and the ways in which their effects can be modified to improve antitumour immunity.
Evidence for crosstalk between the central nervous system and innate immune cells is accumulating. As discussed by Esther Sternberg, neural factors that first amplify and then temper pro-inflammatory responses have a crucial role in pathogen defence and in preventing toxic shock.
This Review describes how tonic signalling — ligand-independent signalling from Igα–Igβ-containing receptors, such as the pre-B-cell receptor (pre-BCR) and BCR — differs from ligand-dependent signalling and then outlines recent advances in our understanding of how tonic signalling is initiated and regulated.
MHC class II molecules are important factors that contribute to the susceptibility of an individual to autoimmune disease. Jones and colleagues look for clues to their involvement in disease by analysing crystal structures of peptide–MHC-class II complexes.
Chen Dong proposes that the recently identified subset of CD4+ T cells that produce interleukin-17 represent a distinct lineage of inflammatory T helper (TH) cells that develop independently of the cytokines and transcription factors that regulate TH1- and TH2-cell differentiation.
Control of virus infection usually requires both cellular and humoral immune responses. This Review outlines the role of virus-specific antibodies in combating viral infections, using lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus as a model non-cytopathic virus and vesicular stomatitis virus as a model acutely cytopathic virus.
