Researchers led by Prof Chen Dong from Tsinghua University (Beijing, China) have demonstrated that increased body temperature critically regulates the differentiation and pathogenicity of Th17, a subset of T cells which have been associated with inflammation and exacerbation of inflammatory diseases*.
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T cells altered by CRISPR may be safe to use in cancer patients
Scientists from USA have recently reported on the first human phase I clinical trial that tested the safety of using CRISPR edited immune cells in patients with advanced cancer. CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing was used to enhance the natural ability of human T cells to fight cancer in three patients.
DENV-infection induces two major CD8 T cell memory subsets
A study by Chng et al., used CYTOF and Luminex to determine cellular activation, phenotypic, memory and functional kinetics associated with acute (febrile), post-febrile and early convalescent DENV infection. As expected they showed that acute infection was associated with high levels of activation ...
Repurposing of a drug for alcoholism to treat cancer
Functional activity by tumor-associated macrophages (TAMs) contribute to an immunosuppresive micro-environment that inhibits killing of cancerous cells. TAMs have been associated with poor prognosis of cancer patients on immunotherapy. Thus a potential cancer therapeutic strategy...
Measles induced immunological amnesia
Epidemiological studies have associated measles infection with increased childhood morbidity and mortality up to 5 years post-infection. This association could be due “immunological amnesia” where measles infection has been reported to deplete of memory B and T cells, as well as plasma cells. However, to date, no studies have directly demonstrated measles...
SEPSIS is WANTED!
Sepsis is life-threatening organ dysfunction due to a dysregulated host response to infection (Singer et al., 2016). Sepsis is actually recognised as a major global health problem, and the World Health Assembly has urged member states to strengthen efforts to identify, document, prevent, and treat sepsis.
Discovery of novel cancer signalling mechanism
Active mutations in KIT tyrosine kinase are found in several cancers, such as acute myeloid leukemia (AML). However, the different locations in the AML cells where KIT induces cancer-specific signaling remain unclear. Scientists from Japan aimed to...
Macrophages and Cervical Cancer: What’s going on with the microenvironment ?
Sánchez-Reyes et al., evaluated the effect of supernatants from cerival cancer derived-cell lines on the phosphorylation of STAT1, NF-kb-p65 and STAT6 and the impact in the secretion profile of cytokines and growth factors by macrophages...
How DNA outside cells can be targeted to prevent the spread of cancer
Study lead by Prof Ryushin Mizuta, have now discovered exactly how cfDNA is generated. They also talk about the applications of DNase1L3-the enzyme mainly responsible for generating cfDNA-as a novel molecule to prevent the spread of tumors.
Solving the puzzle of IgG4-related disease, the elusive autoimmune
Study lead by Prof. Masato Kubo, “planned to explore how IgG4 Abs contributes to the CTL-mediated pancreas tissue damage in IgG4-RD, and also to evaluate the pathogenic function of human IgG4 Abs using the mouse model that we have established.”