Volume 21 Issue 11, November 2021

Muhammad Suleman Rana and colleagues from the National Institute of Health in Pakistan discuss the urgent need to implement catch-up vaccination programmes for measles and polio to prevent resurgence of these deadly diseases.

A breakdown in host symbiosis with commensal microorganisms in the skin can lead to the destruction of hair follicles by innate lymphoid cells.

A new study explores the links between diet and colorectal cancer risk by showing that changes to the intestinal microbiome in mice fed a high-fat diet result in attenuated MHC class II expression by intestinal stem cells and hence impaired immune surveillance of tumour initiation.

Blind mole rats are resistant to cancer. A new study describes how activation of transposons triggers an innate immune response that eliminates premalignant cells.

This Progress article brings us up to date on the role of inflammasomes in severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection and COVID-19, describing how they may be activated during infection and contribute to the overexuberant inflammatory response in severe disease, and the efforts being taken to target them therapeutically.

Fibroblasts are not just crucial structural cells; they exist as multiple functionally diverse populations, defined by their location and context, and regulate tissue immunity. Here, the authors review the immunological properties of fibroblasts, comprising both pro-inflammatory and immunosuppressive activities, in different tissues and disease states.

This Review examines the metabolic adaptations that occur in CD8⁺ T cells in the settings of infection and cancer. The authors discuss the key metabolic features of activated, memory, tissue-resident and dysfunctional CD8⁺ T cell populations and also consider how overall host metabolism can affect the CD8⁺ T cell response.

In this review, Cezmi Akdis discusses how epithelial barrier-damaging agents linked to industrialization, urbanization and modern life may explain the increased prevalence of allergic disease as well as a wide range of autoimmune and metabolic conditions in which immune responses to translocated bacteria have systemic effects.