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It is becoming increasingly clear that the activation of the innate immune system by host or microbial nucleic acids contributes to the immunogenicity of many vaccines. This article describes the receptors and signalling pathways that are involved in sensing nucleic acids and discusses the implications for current and future vaccination strategies.
Phagocytosis is an important innate defence mechanism, and there is more to this process than merely engulfing a pathogen. This Review discusses how myeloid cells integrate the various distinct signals that they receive during phagocytosis in order to promote an appropriate immune response to the threat at hand.
This Review looks at the regulation and functions of antimicrobial proteins in protecting epithelial surfaces from pathogen invasion and maintaining homeostasis with commensal microorganisms.
Here, Paolo Casali and colleagues provide a comprehensive overview of the molecular mechanisms that drive immunoglobulin class-switch DNA recombination (CSR). They describe the signalling determinants of CSR specificity and the epigenetic modifications, transcriptional regulators and scaffold elements that direct the CSR machinery.
Ion channels and transporters, by modulating cytoplasmic concentrations of various cations, control key lymphocyte effector functions. Here, the authors review the roles of these proteins in lymphocytes and how they might interact to fine-tune cell responses.
