Browse Articles

A preprint by Lad et al. shows that tumour-associated neutrophils in glioblastoma originate from skull bone marrow and acquire an antigen-presenting cell phenotype intratumorally in the presence of local T cells.

Ahn et al. show that bat ASC2 negatively regulates inflammasome activation, which could be exploited to inhibit inflammatory diseases in humans.

Drugs that target protein kinases have had a major impact on the treatment of cancer and now are proving beneficial in numerous immunological diseases. This Review describes their clinical application, with a focus on Janus kinase inhibitors, and how they inform mechanisms of disease and have evolved to improve efficacy and safety.

Copper(ii) ions promote the metabolic and epigenetic remodelling of macrophages towards a pro-inflammatory state. A copper-binding metformin dimer showed promising results in mouse models of inflammation.

A preprint by Mahadevan et al. shows that pancreatitis alters the immune landscape of mice with pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma and highlights a role for dendritic cells in promoting responses to immune checkpoint blockade.

A preprint by Rodríguez-Silvestre et al. describes a mechanism for the export of antigens from endosomes regulated by perforin 2, for cross-presentation by dendritic cells.

In this Review, the authors consider how early-life environmental exposures shape the immune system. They highlight how diet, medicines and other environmental factors influence the establishment of the gut microbiota and can impact susceptibility to allergic disease development.

Probiotic gut bacteria can translocate to and persist in melanomas where they stimulate antitumour CD8⁺ T cells through the production of immunomodulatory metabolites.

In this Perspective, Honjo and co-workers describe the discovery of PD1 and its journey to become a major target for cancer immunotherapy. It discusses the complex regulatory systems that govern PD1 expression as well as recent insights into PD1 function and the mechanisms of PD1-blocking therapies.

In this Comment article, the authors argue that recent reports showing effects of sodium on cellular immunometabolism support an expansion of the definition of salt sensitivity beyond effects on blood pressure.

IgG4 has unique functional characteristics that are increasingly recognized to have a pathogenic role in autoimmunity, tumour immunology, IgG4-related diseases and anti-biologic responses, as well as a beneficial role in allergy and parasitic infections.

Assays for, and mechanisms of action of, neutralizing antibodies against viruses are considered here as tools to interpret and predict the activity of such antibodies in vivo, administered passively or induced by vaccination or infection.

This Review details the discovery of the interleukin-6 (IL-6) trans-signalling pathway and the subsequent development of biologics that specifically inhibit this pathway. Emerging evidence suggests that specifically targeting IL-6 trans-signalling can reduce pathological disease-promoting activities of IL-6 without blocking the protective actions of IL-6 in infection and tissue repair.