Volume 18 Issue 10, October 2018

T cells are engineered to home specifically to brain tumours.

Infant immune systems are highly diverse at birth but then show convergence in the first three months of life.

Naive CD4⁺ T cells are prepared for rapid activation and metabolic remodelling through the derepression of a poised translational machinery, which occurs independently of nutrient-sensing pathways.

Adrian Liston describes two papers by Nicole Le Douarin and colleagues from the 1980s that used a chick–quail graft system to show the existence of dominant T cell tolerance.

Autologous T cell–tumour organoid co-cultures provide a minimally invasive method to study patient-specific antitumour immune responses.

Neutrophil cytoplasts promote T helper 17 cell responses that propagate neutrophilic inflammation in severe asthma.

Bacterially primed T cells reactive against heat shock proteins enter the eye and cause neurodegeneration in glaucoma.

This Review explores the challenges and opportunities of taking CARs down new therapeutic roads, in terms of developing chimeric antigen receptors (CARs) for treating infectious disease, autoimmunity and transplant rejection.

Histone deacetylases (HDACs) and histone acetyltransferases mediate reversible acetylation of histones and many other non-histone proteins to regulate gene expression and protein function. Here, the authors describe the myriad activities of HDACs in CD4⁺ T cells and the potential use of HDAC inhibitors as therapeutics for immune-mediated diseases.

CD4⁺ T cells provide help to CD8⁺ T cells via lymph node-resident dendritic cells. In this Review, the authors discuss the molecular nature of help signals and how they can be harnessed to improve cancer immunotherapy.

IL-2 is well known for its crucial role in driving T cell responses. Now, with improved knowledge of its expression, signalling and regulation, the therapeutic potential of administering or inhibiting IL-2 is being explored to treat autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases and cancer.