Immunity system complexity: building T cell memory (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, September 28, 2020, 22:38 (1299 days ago) @ David Turell

How T cells function when stimulated by infections:

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-09-memory-immune.html

"After an infection of the human body with a pathogen, a cascade of reactions will usually be set into motion. Amongst others, specific cells of the immune system known as T cells get activated in the lymph node and will subsequently divide and proliferate.

"At the same time, these cells will gain certain functions, that enable them to destroy other cells, that are e.g. infected by a virus. In addition, they produce certain proteins—so called cytokines—with which they can stop the reproduction of the pathogen.

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"If a body has fought and eliminated a pathogen successfully, most of the recently proliferated T cells are no longer needed and will die," Wolfgang Kastenmueller explains. But about five to ten percent of these cells survive and develop into a long lasting "memory population," that will protect the body against future infections.

"Kastenmueller describes the main result of his study, "In our recent work we identified a transcription factor—BATF3, that very specifically regulates the survival of these cells and therefore the transition into a memory response." The scientists could show that this factor only gets produced shortly after the initial activation of T cells. The absence of this factor leads to a permanent malfunction of the memory response.

"Until now the role of this factor for so-called CD8+ T cells was unclear. It was only after the scientists overexpressed this factor in CD8+ T cells that the importance became clear, as they could see that the survival of these cells and thus the immunological memory improved significantly."

Comment: A complex design that had to be designed at the start of multicellular life to protect that new form of life.