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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.

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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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