Reviews & Analysis

This Review, aimed at a broad scientific audience, provides an introductory guide to the history, development and immunological basis of vaccines, immunization and related issues to provide insight into the challenges facing immunologists who are designing the next generation of vaccines.

As the world races to develop vaccines against SARS-CoV-2, Dai and Gao highlight which viral targets are best to include in a vaccine and how this impacts the induced immune response and, ultimately, the safety and efficacy of a vaccine.

Metabolic pathways play a central role in determining the fate and function of immune cells, and cellular activation induces profound changes in their oxidation–reduction (redox) system. Here, Muri and Kopf examine the crosstalk between metabolic and redox pathways and discuss their role in the proliferation, survival and function in T cells, B cells and macrophages.

The structures of activated nucleotide-binding oligomerization domain (NOD)-like receptors (NLRs) in plants and animals reveal a common principle of NLR activation, but allow different modes of non-self recognition and the initiation of different immune signalling and cell death pathways.

In this Perspective, Alon and colleagues discuss how insights into immune cell trafficking during pneumotropic influenza virus infections may inform our understanding of immune cell recruitment to the respiratory tract in patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Moreover, they examine the emerging knowledge of vascular pathologies beyond the lung caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Cell death recognition can result in a multitude of distinct effector responses. Here, the authors discuss a framework for determining the specific effector response to cell death that relies on its recognition, contextual environmental signals and the identity of the efferocyte.

Glucocorticoid treatment is used to suppress the immune system in various disease settings. However, endogenous glucocorticoids are able to promote as well as inhibit different aspects of T cell immunity. Here, the authors discuss the many ways in which T cell responses are shaped by glucocorticoids.

Are you new to virus research and trying to interpret the ever-expanding literature on immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)? Here, the authors compare the different assays and animal models used to measure immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection and reconcile differences in apparent potency of antibodies assessed in different assays.

Reconstitution of the immune system after depletion by chemotherapy, radiotherapy, infection or transplantation is crucial to maintain protection from infection and to respond to immune-based therapy. Here the authors describe the ways in which a diverse T cell compartment can be restored, focusing on therapeutic strategies that drive the production of new T cells.

A number of T cell-intrinsic peripheral tolerance mechanisms (quiescence, ignorance, anergy, exhaustion, senescence and cell death) restrain autoimmunity and overactive immune responses. Here, the authors provide an integrated perspective of peripheral T cell tolerance by comparing the molecular mechanisms that govern these checkpoints and discussing their role in T cell tolerance and fate regulation.

This Review focuses on the roles of γδ T cells in tissue homeostasis and immune surveillance. The authors discuss exciting new studies showing how γδ T cells can regulate diverse physiological responses in tissues, ranging from thermogenesis in adipose tissue to remodelling at neuronal synapses.

How does the discovery of SARS-CoV-2 cross-reactive T cells in unexposed individuals change our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic? In this Perspective, the authors provide a thought experiment to explain why the discovery of cross-reactive T cells may affect disease severity in individuals, but is unlikely to change our estimate of the herd immunity threshold.

Memory B cells are critically important for the formation of protective immunity following infection or vaccination, and a better understanding of these cells may inform strategies to overcome hurdles in the development of effective vaccines. This Review discusses the signals and transcription factors that regulate the development and function of germinal centre-derived memory B cells.

A transcription factor network triggered by Notch signalling in the thymus guides proliferating, multipotent progenitor cells into the T cell pathway. This Review describes how these factors work to establish regulatory target specificity, epigenomic impact and irreversibility for T cell identity.

Here, the authors explore how the modern way of life increases the risk of allergy and asthma, in particular by affecting the formation and diversity of the microbiota in early life. Understanding these changes highlights strategies for allergy prevention.

For this Viewpoint, Nature Reviews Immunology asked the presidents of 16 immunology societies from around the world to discuss how their society and its members responded to the COVID-19 pandemic. Their answers highlight the incredible contributions that immunologists around the globe have made following the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Genetic models of dendritic cell (DC) development in mice have aided our understanding of the redundant and non-redundant functions of DC subsets and enabled translation of these findings to human DCs.

This Review outlines the guiding immunological principles for the design of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) vaccine strategies and analyses the current COVID-19 vaccine landscape and the challenges ahead.

Lactate accumulates in cancerous and chronically inflamed tissues, where it has diverse and often opposing effects. Here, the authors review the activities of this metabolite in these distinct circumstances, identifying opportunities for therapeutic modulation of the metabolic signature in tumours and inflammatory diseases.

In this Review, the authors describe how dysregulated protein translation in cancer cells is an important source of tumour-specific peptides for immunosurveillance and how MHC class I antigen-processing and presentation pathways are manipulated by tumours for immunoevasion — information that will inform cancer immunotherapy approaches.