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Volume 8 Issue 7, July 2007

Lymph nodes bar entry to previously activated cytotoxic T cells. Inflammatory signals, however, activate lymph nodes to transiently express CXCL9 on high endothelial venules. Sallusto and colleagues report that 'killer' T cells, responding to the CXCL9 cue, can re-enter inflamed lymph nodes to eliminate antigen-presenting dendritic cells. The original image (by Miroslav Hons and Federica Sallusto) shows CXCL9 (red) on lymph node high endothelial venules surrounded by fibers of the fibroblastic reticular cell network (green). Artwork by Lewis Long.

Volume 8 Issue 7

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Editorial

  • Sharing insight into esoteric techniques and ideas for manipulating the mouse genome fosters the production of better in vivo immunological systems.

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Commentary

  • Mutations have been the driving force behind some of the most important discoveries in immunology, and the growing speed with which they can be found has impelled the use of random mutagenesis to create new immunological phenotypes in mice. Here we describe how phenotypes are created, detected and ascribed to genetic change.

    • Bruce Beutler
    • Xin Du
    • Yu Xia
    Commentary

  • Conditional gene targeting based on excision or inversion of loxP-flanked DNA segments by Cre recombinase is a powerful technology for the analysis of gene function, but unexpected expression patterns of cre transgenes, variability of recombination efficiency depending on the target gene and potential toxicity of Cre recombinase represent serious challenges for the experimenter.

    • Marc Schmidt-Supprian
    • Klaus Rajewsky
    Commentary

  • There is general appreciation that 'genetic background effects' can profoundly affect the immune phenotypes of congenic, transgenic and knockout mice. We suggest that attributing phenotypes to genetic background effects is outmoded and that new databases containing single-nucleotide polymorphisms obtained with a group of inbred mouse strains can be used to define the flanking DNA of nearly all mouse genes.

    • William M Ridgway
    • Barry Healy
    • Linda S Wicker
    Commentary
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News & Views

  • Toll-like receptors respond to ligands embedded in pathogen-derived macromolecules to induce immune responses. Binding of a stimulatory ligand to preexisting dimers of Toll-like receptor 9 induces conformational changes that lead to their full activation.

    • You-Me Kim
    • Melanie M Brinkmann
    • Hidde L Ploegh
    News & Views

  • Allelic exclusion acts to ensure lymphocytes express only one antigen receptor on their surfaces. Differences in DNA methylation are now shown to distinguish alleles for subsequent somatic hypermutation steps leading to antibody affinity maturation.

    • Daniel Bolland
    • Anne Corcoran
    News & Views

  • Intensive characterization of the locus encoding interferon-γ provides new insight into how proper gene expression is achieved in polarizing T cells. NOTE: In the version of this News & Views initially published, the figure credit is missing. This figure should be credited to Ann Thomson. The error has been corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article.

    • Charalampos G Spilianakis
    • Richard A Flavell
    News & Views
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