Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Williams and colleagues investigate the origin, dynamics and transcriptional profiles of aortic intima macrophages during atherosclerosis disease progression.
Questions have arisen as to whether patients with severe COVID-19 disease can generate a T cell response against SARS-CoV-2. Tao Dong and colleagues report that convalescent patients with COVID-19 harbor functional memory CD4+ and CD8+ T cells that recognize multiple epitopes that span the viral proteome. CD4+ T cells predominated the memory response in patients with severe disease, whereas higher proportions of CD8+ T cells were found in patients with mild disease.
Costimulatory blockade via the CTLA-4–Ig fusion protein abatacept is beneficial in patients with early-onset type 1 diabetes, but some individuals benefit more than others. A new study reports that the pretreatment abundance of T follicular helper (TFH) cells could predict clinical responses to abatacept.
To trigger an adequate humoral immune response while ensuring self-tolerance, B cell activation is tightly controlled. A new study indicates that an NR4A-enforced built-in brake fine-tunes the early phase of transcriptional reprogramming induced by BCR stimulation.
Antigen-activated B cells are short lived in the absence of a second signal provided by CD4+ T cells or cytokines. Zikherman and colleagues report that the NR4A family of nuclear receptors (NUR77 and NOR-1) are responsible for enforcing this ‘tolerance’ to self-antigen (signal 1 only) and explain, in part, why B cells are dependent upon a second signal.
B cell development and selection occur in the often hypoxic environment of the bone marrow. Burrows and colleagues demonstrate that dynamic regulation of B cell–intrinsic hypoxia-inducible factor-1α is essential for normal B cell development and function.
Checkpoint blockade is effective in only a subset of patients; therefore, biomarkers that can predict efficacy would be clinically highly valuable. Nishkawa and colleagues develop a biomarker based on PD-1 positivity of effector and regulatory T cells in the tumor microenvironment that accurately predicts the effectiveness of checkpoint blockade in patients.
A vicious cycle, linking obesity with chronic inflammation, fuels the development and exacerbation of metabolic syndrome and other disorders. Modulation of mitochondrial energy metabolism via interleukin-1β signaling establishes a runaway positive-feedback loop that brings about and reinforces the sequelae of a high-fat diet.
“The role of cytokines in COVID-19” online symposium was presented on 18 June 2020 by the NIH/FDA Immunology and Cytokine Interest Groups and was purposed to discuss our rapidly changing understanding of COVID-19-related cytokine responses in different stages of infection, including the etiologies, downstream consequences and possible mitigation strategies. The recording is available at https://nci.rev.vbrick.com/sharevideo/03106730-66cc-47ba-870b-f6e6274a998a.
New studies suggest that NKG7 is essential for NK and CD8+ T cell cytotoxic degranulation and CD4+ T cell activation and proinflammatory responses. While the mechanism is yet to be determined, the functional relevance is exciting and opens the possibility of a new target for cellular immunotherapies.
NKG7 is a molecule well associated with NK cells but of unknown function. Engwerda and colleagues demonstrate that NKG7 is also associated with TH1 cells and is essential for type I and cytotoxic responses.
Takayanagi and colleagues show that thymic medullary fibroblasts can contribute to central tolerance mechanisms by expressing cell-type-specific antigens distinct from those expressed by medullary thymic epithelial cells.
Diamond and colleagues generate a K18-hACE2 model of SARS-CoV-2 infection that shares many features of severe COVID-19 infection and can be used to define the basis of lung disease and test immune and antiviral-based countermeasures.
The developmental timing for exhaustion is still obscure. Kallies and colleagues demonstrate that CD8+ T cell ‘exhaustion’ actually begins in the less-differentiated TCF1+ ‘precursor’ T cell pool during chronic viral infections.
The angiocrine Rspondin3 is produced by endothelial cells (ECs) and controls growth and development. Malik and colleagues show that lung ECs produce Rspondin3 following injury and specifically direct interstitial macrophages into an anti-inflammatory and wound-healing program.
Whether and how thymic tolerance to tissue-restricted antigens (TRA) could be achieved posed a conundrum until Klein and colleagues discovered that medullary thymic epithelial cells were capable of bursts of TRA expression.
Pancreatic cancer has one of the worst survival outcomes of all cancers. Leinwand and Miller review the immunological landscape of pancreatic cancer, immune evasion mechanisms and the impact of the microbiota.