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TRANSGENERATIONAL IMMUNITY

Reimagining an immunological dogma

Nature Immunology volume 22, pages 1355–1358 (2021)Cite this article

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Infections are known to induce epigenetic rewiring in myeloid cells, a phenomenon known as trained immunity, which protects against re-infection. New data show that, in mice, trained immunity can be inherited, possibly by gametic DNA methylation and chromatin remodeling linked to immune traits.

Biologists should remain open to surprises when it comes to the innate immune system. Recent work has shown that the acquisition of immunological memory is not a unique feature of the adaptive (acquired) immune system, because the activation of innate immune cells can also establish increased resistance to subsequent infections; this ‘innate memory’ has been termed ‘trained immunity’, and is primarily mediated by epigenetic reprogramming of myeloid cells1. In this issue of Nature Immunology, Katzmarski and colleagues2 take a substantial step forward and demonstrate that trained immunity can be transmitted to the following generations.

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Fig. 1: Inheritance of trained immunity.

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Acknowledgements

G.M. is funded by Fondazione Italiana Sclerosi Multipla (FISM; grants 2016/R/18 and 2018/S/5), Progetti di Rilevante Interesse Nazionale (PRIN; grant 2017 K55HLC 001), and Ministero della Salute (grant RF-2019-12371111). P.d.C. is supported by the National Multiple Sclerosis Society (NMSS; grant PP-1606-24687), FISM (grants 2016/R/10 and 2018/R/4), and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF; grant 1-SRA-2018-477-S-B). We thank F. Prattichizzo for critically reviewing the manuscript and S. Bruzzaniti for assistance with creating the illustration in Fig. 1.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. IRCCS MultiMedica, Milan, Italy

    Paola de Candia

  2. Treg Cell Lab, Dipartimento di Medicina Molecolare e Biotecnologie Mediche, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”, Naples, Italy

    Giuseppe Matarese

  3. Laboratorio di Immunologia, Istituto per l’Endocrinologia e l’Oncologia Sperimentale “G. Salvatore”, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IEOS-CNR), Naples, Italy

    Giuseppe Matarese

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  1. Paola de Candia
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  2. Giuseppe Matarese
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Correspondence to Paola de Candia or Giuseppe Matarese.

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de Candia, P., Matarese, G. Reimagining an immunological dogma. Nat Immunol 22, 1355–1358 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-021-01046-5

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