Volume 10 Issue 1, January 2010

Learning from the similarities and differences between phylogenetic branches.

A potential mechanism for the pulmonary complications of autoimmune diseases.

XCL1 chemoattracts CD8⁺DCs and promotes antigen cross-presentation.

High virus-induced mortality among the elderly blamed on exaggerated IL-17 responses.

More than simple molecule clustering needed for signal transduction.

Memory T_H1 and T_H17 cells arise from different infection routes and differ in longevity.

Pro-inflammatory protein PDCD4 targeted by microRNA tempers LPS toxicity.

Neutrophils are found to produce interleukin-10 in response to bacterial stimuli.

Maternal exposure to farm-associated bacteria may protect offspring from asthma

Commensal staphylococci on the skin help limit potentially harmful inflammation.

Unprecedented insight into the early stages of HIV-1 infection has provided important clues for vaccine design. Here, the authors discuss how early virological and immunological events, including transmission by a single founder virus and marked CD4⁺T cell loss, might influence the course of disease.

This Review article describes the variety of mechanisms that regulate the production of protein and lipid mediators of inflammation through effects on translation initiation and mRNA decay, with an emphasis on mechanisms that link the initiation and resolution phases of inflammation.

An important aspect of atherosclerosis is the defective resolution of the inflammatory response to subendothelial lipoproteins. But what are the pathways involved in inflammation resolution, why are they defective in atherosclerotic lesions and how can they be therapeutically targeted?

The soil nematodeCaenorhabditis elegans is easy to manipulate genetically and is therefore a useful model organism. But C. elegansdoes not use its Toll-like receptor homologue for immune defence. So what can it tell us about the origins and functions of other immune defence pathways in higher organisms?

In this Review, the authors illustrate how computational modelling can complement experimental research to understand highly complex signalling networks in T cells. They explain how computational approaches can help to eliminate incorrect hypotheses, generate new hypotheses, reveal gaps in our knowledge and design better experiments.

In this Opinion article, the authors discuss our current understanding of the roles of immunoproteasomes and thymoproteasomes in T cell receptor repertoire formation and propose that immunoproteasomes have additional roles in cytokine production and T helper cell differentiation.