Immunity: Gamma Delta T cells hunt with precision (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, November 12, 2018, 19:44 (2204 days ago) @ David Turell

Are cells OK or becoming cancerous is the job these newly found cells do:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-11-two-pronged-device-enables-maverick-immune.html

"Immune cells called Gamma Delta T cells can act independently to identify and kill cancer cells, defying the conventional view of the immune system, reveals new research.

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"For the past two decades, it has been dogma that the immune system is made up of two distinct subsystems: the 'innate' immune system, which offers us broad protection by detecting when things simply aren't normal; and the specialised 'adaptive' immune system which can discriminate and respond to very specific threats. The new study challenges this view, providing the first direct evidence that a single protein on a single cell type can perform both functions, detecting when things aren't normal and then mounting a specific response.

"Equipped with these unprecedented capabilities, Gamma Delta T cells patrol for pathogens or dangerously mutated cells arising in expansive body tissues, such as the skin and the gut. The new research found that the cells use two different checks to make sure they don't kill a healthy cell: checking if the cell looks dangerous but also whether it is nonetheless functioning normally. For example, if the Gamma Delta T cells see a gut cell that appears slightly mutated, but that is still normal by many other criteria, they will likely leave it alone. Without this type of check, the immune system could unleash uncontrolled attacks on healthy tissue.

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"The analysis showed that Gamma Delta T cells are highly adaptable and can learn to tackle specific threats such as cancer cells. It also revealed that the signs of 'normality' they look for depend on the tissue that they're in; when the cells sit in the gut, they spare cells behaving like normal gut cells, whereas they seemingly use other scores of normality to make judgement calls about cells in the skin."

Comment: These are obviously automatic reactions on the part of these designed cells, which must have been present from the beginning of multicellular organisms with a circulatory system, since it appears cancer development has always been present and this balance was necessary.