Immunology articles within Nature

Featured

  • Article |

    To survive and evade host responses, malaria parasites export several hundred proteins into the host cell on infection. A feature of these proteins is a conserved, pentameric motif that is cleaved by an unknown protease before export. This is one of two independent studies revealing the identity of the protease as plasmepsin V, an aspartic acid protease located in the endoplasmic reticulum. This enzyme is essential for parasite viability and is an attractive candidate for drug development.

    • Justin A. Boddey
    • , Anthony N. Hodder
    •  & Alan F. Cowman

  • News & Views |

    TH2 growth factors, which are involved in allergy and in defence against parasites, are produced by many different cell types, including a newly identified population found in fat-associated lymph clusters in the abdomen.

    • Warren Strober

  • Brief Communications Arising |

    • Sophie Brinster
    • , Gilles Lamberet
    •  & Claire Poyart

  • Letter |

    Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) are an important class of immune effector molecules which fight pathogen infections. AMP induction in Drosophila is regulated through the activation of the Toll and immune deficiency pathways; it is now shown that AMP activation can be achieved independently of these pathways by the transcription factor FOXO. In non-infected animals, AMP genes are activated in response to nuclear FOXO activity when induced by starvation.

    • Thomas Becker
    • , Gerrit Loch
    •  & Michael Hoch

  • Letter |

    Distinguishing self from non-self is a vital function for immune systems to repel invaders without inducing autoimmunity. One system, which protects bacteria and archaea from invasion by phage and plasmid DNA, involves clustered, regularly interspaced, short palindromic repeat (CRISPR) loci. Here, in Staphylococcus epidermidis, the mechanism of CRISPR self/non-self discrimination is defined.

    • Luciano A. Marraffini
    •  & Erik J. Sontheimer

  • Article |

    GNF-2 is a recently discovered, selective allosteric Bcr–Abl inhibitor. Solution NMR, X-ray crystallography, mutagenesis and hydrogen exchange mass spectrometry are now used to show that GNF-2 binds to the myristate-binding site of Abl, leading to changes in the structural dynamics of the ATP-binding site. The results show that the combination of allosteric and ATP-competitive inhibitors can overcome resistance to either agent alone.

    • Jianming Zhang
    • , Francisco J. Adrián
    •  & Nathanael S. Gray

  • Letter |

    Immune homeostasis relies on tight control over the size of a population of regulatory T cells (Treg) that can suppress over-exuberant immune responses. Cells commit to the Treg lineage by upregulating the transcription factor Foxp3. Conserved non-coding DNA sequence elements at the Foxp3 locus are now shown to control the composition, size and maintenance of the Treg cell population.

    • Ye Zheng
    • , Steven Josefowicz
    •  & Alexander Y. Rudensky

  • Letter |

    The role of B-cell-receptor (BCR) signalling in human B cell lymphomas has been a long-standing question, with genetic and functional evidence for its oncogenic role in human lymphomas lacking. Here, a form of 'chronic active' BCR signalling that is required for cell survival in the activated B-cell-like subtype of diffuse large B-cell lymphoma is described and analysed, with potential implications for future therapeutic strategies.

    • R. Eric Davis
    • , Vu N. Ngo
    •  & Louis M. Staudt

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