In this Comment article, Sandy Douglas and Adrian Hill discuss the immunological considerations associated with a risk–benefit analysis for controlled human infection models of SARS-CoV-2.

The tetracycline antibiotic doxycycline is shown to not only have direct antimicrobial effects but also promote disease tolerance mechanisms, including tissue repair and metabolic reprogramming.

Upregulation of the protease ADAMTS4 by activated fibroblasts drives immunopathology in the lungs and respiratory failure during severe viral infections.

This report shows that trained immunity, a form of innate immune memory, can be induced through nanobiologics and that these have anticancer properties and can sensitize to checkpoint therapy.

In this Progress article, Wang and Colonna highlight a flurry of recent reports that have shaped our understanding of how environmental cues and clock genes regulate group 3 innate lymphoid cells. They consider the implications of these findings for intestinal immunity.

Are you new to virus research and trying to interpret the ever-expanding literature on immunity to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)? Here, the authors compare the different assays and animal models used to measure immunity to SARS-CoV-2 infection and reconcile differences in apparent potency of antibodies assessed in different assays.

The ATP–adenosine pathway plays an important role in modulating innate and adaptive immune responses in the tumour microenvironment. Here, the authors focus on CD39, a key enzyme in the ATP–adenosine pathway, and examine immunotherapeutic strategies that target it.

The authors compare the thymic development of several innate-like T cell populations, including natural killer T cells, mucosal-associated invariant T cells and γδ T cells. They focus on the cytokines, surface molecules and transcription factors that are necessary for the development of these cells and highlight some of the key differences from conventional T cell development.

Why does the human genome encode more than 300 potential immune inhibitory receptors? Here, the authors propose a categorization of inhibitory receptors — as threshold receptors and negative feedback receptors — that reflects their distinct functions in immune regulation, illustrated using mathematical modelling. This categorization may be useful for the therapeutic targeting of inhibitory receptors.