Trends in Immunology

Trends Immunol. 2024 Dec 12:S1471-4906(24)00295-3. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.11.010. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Biomolecular condensates are membraneless organelles formed through liquid-liquid phase separation. Innate immunity is essential to host defense against infections, but pathogens also harbor sophisticated mechanisms to evade host defense. The formation of biomolecular condensates emerges as a key biophysical mechanism in host-pathogen interactions, … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Dec 10:S1471-4906(24)00280-1. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.11.009. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Gopee and colleagues’ recent analyses of diverse high-dimensional datasets of prenatal and adult skin, together with data from complex skin organoids, uncover the important contributions of macrophages in modulating prenatal skin development, scarless wound healing, and angiogenesis. These findings identify a role for … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Nov 26:S1471-4906(24)00249-7. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.10.003. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT The polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) is an established therapeutic target in cancer. PRC2 catalyzes methylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (H3K27me3) and is known for maintaining eukaryote cell identity. Recent discoveries show that modulation of PRC2 not only impacts cell differentiation … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Nov 27:S1471-4906(24)00275-8. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.11.004. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Chronic antigen exposure is frequently associated with T cell exhaustion. In a recent study, Aljobaily et al. show that pancreatic islet-infiltrating CD4+ T cells in mouse autoimmune diabetes may circumvent exhaustion by preserving TCF1 expression. Continuous recruitment of epigenetically pre-programmed CD62L+ CD4+ T … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Nov 27:S1471-4906(24)00278-3. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.11.007. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT In the battle against cancer, researchers are exploring the use of engineered bacteria as living medicines. Redenti and colleagues demonstrate that Escherichia coli Nissle 1917 (EcN) can be engineered to deliver cancer neoantigen payloads, stimulating antigen-specific CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and mediating … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Nov 26:S1471-4906(24)00274-6. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.11.003. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT The recent discovery by Lu and colleagues of Tomasiella immunophila, a bacterium that degrades IgA, offers insights into microbial influences on mucosal immunity and evolutionary immune trade-offs. By modulating IgA titers, T. immunophila influences the dynamic interactions and balance between the host and … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Nov 22:S1471-4906(24)00273-4. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.11.002. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Innate immune cells that are epigenetically reprogrammed by infection can modify host responses to subsequent infections. Lercher et al. have identified epigenetic reprogramming of murine airway-resident macrophages following recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection, conferring protection from pathology and lethality following secondary influenza A virus … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Nov 21:S1471-4906(24)00277-1. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.11.006. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Following on from the discovery that innate immune pathways are shared widely across the tree of life comes another surprise: Hobbs et al. show that viruses targeting animals and bacteria also use highly conserved tools to fight back. Why such mechanisms remain seemingly … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Nov 21:S1471-4906(24)00252-7. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.10.006. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT Combinations of the highly polymorphic KIR and HLA-I genes are associated with numerous human diseases. Interpreting these associations requires a molecular understanding of the multiple killer-cell immunoglobulin-like receptor (KIR)-human leukocyte antigen-1 (HLA-I) receptor-ligand interactions on natural killer (NK) cells and identifying the salient … Read more

Trends Immunol. 2024 Nov 21:S1471-4906(24)00279-5. doi: 10.1016/j.it.2024.11.008. Online ahead of print. ABSTRACT A recent study by Ascic et al. demonstrates that in situ reprogramming of tumor cells into conventional dendritic cell (cDC)-like cells using viral-PIB transcription factors creates an immunogenic tumor microenvironment with T cell recruitment and activation. The study highlights the potential of tumor-specific … Read more