European Journal of Immunology

PMA/ionomycin and CD3/CD28 stimulation induce fundamentally distinct signaling programs in primary human T cells. While CD3/CD28 stimulation activates both ERK and IL-2/STAT5 signaling pathways, PMA/ionomycin induces predominantly ERK-dependent proliferation despite robust IL-2 production and CD25 upregulation. These findings highlight important mechanistic and methodological differences between pharmacological and receptor-mediated T-cell activation.

This review explores how mesenteric adipose tissue, particularly creeping fat, contributes to intestinal inflammation through dysregulated adipokine signalling. We explore how metabolic stress alters immune-adipose interactions and promotes disease progression. Insights from mechanistic studies highlight mesenteric adipose tissue as a key driver of inflammation and a potential therapeutic target. ABSTRACT Inflammatory bowel disease, including Crohn’s … Read more

Inducing memory inflation (MI) is a promising future vaccination strategy. We show that spread-defective cytomegalovirus does not induce MI in the absence of CD4+ T cells. Support from CD4+ T cells can drive effector differentiation of MI cells, even late in the response, and contributes to long-term response maintenance. ABSTRACT Memory inflation (MI) is a … Read more

This review highlights T cell exhaustion as an adaptive differentiation trajectory, not dysfunction, showing how precursor, intermediate, and terminal exhausted states maintain antigen recognition while limiting tissue damage in chronic immune activation. ABSTRACT T cell exhaustion is now recognised as a structured, antigen-driven differentiation programme rather than a state of cellular fatigue. Under sustained antigen … Read more

This review will explore the role of the factor H-related (FHR) proteins in age-related macular degeneration (AMD), their accumulation in the outer blood/retinal barrier, and how they may contribute to barrier dysfunction and inflammation. ABSTRACT Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the third most common form of blindness in the Western world, with a predicted 288 … Read more

LPS-stimulated macrophages exhibit high glycolytic flux, with pyruvate preferentially converted to lactate even under normoglycemic conditions, limiting pyruvate availability for the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and reducing oxygen consumption rate (OCR). Glucose deprivation increases OCR; however, an innate hypoxic state is associated with low UCP2 levels in this phenotype. In contrast, under normal glucose conditions, … Read more

Given the relatively high level of coexistence, a nonlinear model is more suitable for mutual exclusion than a linear model. Based on mutual exclusion, negative markers were identified for CD4+ cytotoxic T cells, particularly CD126. However, according to FACS analysis, CD28 is the most effective cell surface negative marker. ABSTRACT CD4 cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) … Read more

The immunoglobulin (Ig) domain exon of human NKp30 contains internal splice sites. A unique intraexonic splicing mechanism produces a short Ig domain that lacks 25 residues but maintains the Ig-fold structure and is expressed on the cell surface. Unlike full-length NKp30, the short version (NKp30-S) does not bind the cancer cell ligand B7H6. ABSTRACT The … Read more

Our cover features images related to flow cytometry techniques widely used for analysis of function and phenotypes of major human and murine immune cell subsets, superimposed on a multidimensional immune cell population scatter plot. These images are taken from the third edition of EJI’s Flow Cytometry Guidelines by Cossarizza et al., a comprehensive resource prepared … Read more

European Journal of Immunology, Volume 56, Issue 6, June 2026.