Articles in 2016

Infection with cytomegalovirus induces an unusually high level of long-lasting memory T cells that have potent effector functions. Understanding how and why this occurs might help to improve responses to vaccination.

Circulating tumour cells fragment as they metastasize, providing 'information' to immune cells that promote or inhibit metastasis.

Peritoneal cavity macrophages are rapidly recruited by a non-vascular route to the injured liver to mediate tissue repair.

Arginase 1 regulates ILC2 metabolism and the development of type 2 inflammation in the lungs.

Intestinal regulatory T cells (T_regcells) are distinct from those in other organs and function to maintain tolerance to harmless dietary antigens and commensal microorganisms. The unique features of these cells, as well as the signals involved in their development and maintenance, are discussed in this Review.

In this Review, the authors detail the diverse roles of host defence peptides (HDPs) in innate immunity and their association with inflammatory diseases. They highlight the complexity of the immune signalling pathways that are influenced by natural and synthetic HDPs and show that systems biology approaches are important to understand this complexity.

Tracy Hussell describes a 2003 study by Chenet al. that pioneered the concept of heterologous immunity.

Autophagy regulates survival and lineage stability in peripheral regulatory T cells.

In this Review, the authors discuss the emerging role of T cell receptor (TCR) specificity and signalling in the differentiation, maintenance and function of regulatory T (T_Reg) cells. Understanding how TCR signalling regulates T_Regcells has important therapeutic implications in the regulation of immune tolerance and inflammation.

A substantial proportion of our genome is composed of endogenous retroelements of viral origin. Such elements can retain viral characteristics and drive activation of the immune system; this can contribute to both undesirable outcomes, such as autoimmune disease, as well as beneficial responses, such as increased immune reactivity to tumours. In this Review, the authors describe the pros and the cons of these 'enemies within'.

The wide diversity of clinical and immunological phenotypes of patients with RAG deficiency, combined with structural characterization of the RAG protein complex, have provided new mechanistic insights into RAG protein function.

Maternal immune activation can lead to autism-like behaviour in offspring, and in mice this depends on maternal interleukin-17A production.

Ageing muscles fail to accumulate regeneration-promoting regulatory T cells after injury.

Nuclear factor-κB signalling induces p62-dependent autophagy of damaged mitochondria to limit NLRP3 inflammasome activation.

Autoimmune regulator (AIRE) is best known for its role in immune tolerance. In this Review, the authors summarize the recent advances in our understanding of the diverse functions of AIRE, including its role in selection of regulatory T cells and modulation of non-autoimmune diseases.

Anecdotal reports of HIV-infected children who have continued to control viral replication after discontinuing antiretroviral therapy have led to the hope that unique factors associated with paediatric infection might offer greater potential for HIV cure in children than in adults.

The release of sphingosine-1-phosphate from dying cells activates erythropoietin signalling in macrophages, which enables immunologically silent clearance of dying cells.