Mucosal Immunology

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 23:100389. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100389. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Sex-based differences in respiratory disease outcomes are well recognized. However, the underlying immunological mechanisms driving this dimorphism remain incompletely understood. While sex hormones influence immune cell development and function, the role of commensal microbes in shaping sex-specific lung immunity has not been explored. … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 22:100388. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100388. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Pulmonary fibrosis is a complex disease with poorly understood, multifactorial triggers. Gammaherpesviruses (γHVs), including Epstein-Barr virus in humans and Murid herpesvirus 4 (MuHV-4) in mice, have been linked to pulmonary fibrosis exacerbation, although the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. This study explores how γHV … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 18:100385. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100385. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Mucus obstructs the airways in respiratory diseases where MUC5B is the major gel-forming mucin in COPD and MUC5AC-rich mucus dominates in asthma. Mucin production changes in response to inflammatory signals, but whether mucin dysregulation drives inflammation is less studied. OBJECTIVE: We sought … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 17:100387. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100387. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis is a progressive lung disease characterized by the rapid scarring of the lung parenchyma resulting in impaired gas exchange and early mortality. Current treatment options are limited; lung transplantation remains the only definitive treatment. The adaptive immune system has been … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 16:100386. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100386. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT After respiratory infection, the lung does not simply return to the prior baseline but adopts a new distinct post-infection steady state involving durable imprints that can shape tissue responses to subsequent challenges. This review introduces the concept of lung tissue memory, whereby prior … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 13:100383. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100383. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT BACKGROUND: Early postnatal gut colonization, microbial metabolite production, and immune maturation proceed in parallel. Although disruption has been linked to later allergic disease, cellular immune patterns remain insufficiently defined. Very and extremely preterm infants frequently develop eosinophilia, providing a setting to relate eosinophil … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 10:100382. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100382. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Intestinal microbiota composition influences innate and adaptive immunity, both within and beyond the intestine. A prominent example of the latter is segmented filamentous bacteria (SFB), whose gut colonization reprograms alveolar macrophages (AM) and systemically shapes T cell polarity. We hypothesized that these impacts … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 8:100381. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100381. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Licensure of influenza vaccines relies on serum hemagglutination inhibition (HAI) titers, a correlate of protection (CoP) that was developed more than 50 years ago and which is only poorly predictive of protection. This is especially true of immunity induced by intranasal live attenuated … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 8:100378. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100378. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Integrin α4β7 directs lymphocyte trafficking to the intestinal lamina propria (LP) and is a major therapeutic target in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Although integrin (Itg) β7 has been extensively studied in T-cell recruitment, its role in protective mucosal humoral immunity during chronic ileitis … Read more

Mucosal Immunol. 2026 Jul 7:100380. doi: 10.1016/j.mucimm.2026.100380. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Granulocyte-macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) is a cytokine that predominantly acts on myeloid cells. Although decades of research have revealed diverse functions of GM-CSF during inflammation across tissues, it exerts important homeostatic functions, most notably in the lung. Extensive studies have established the essential … Read more