To be honest I had never heard of the Circadian Clock! Had you? It is our biological internal clock. The circadian rhythms refer to biologic processes that oscillate with a period of 24 hr and are influenced by regular variations in the environment, such as the alternation of night and day. Circadian rhythms include sleeping […]
Last Monday (20-02) Professor Reina Mebius, from the VUMC in Amsterdam gave, as usually, a very elegant and convincing seminar (entitled: “Lymphoid tissue formation during development and chronic inflammatory diseases”)! She came up with surprising data that show that increasing the quantity of vitamin A in the diet of pregnant mouse mothers has a dramatic […]
I do not resist to the « auto-promotion » with this article about my new laboratory, headed by Prof. Bruno Silva-Santos, which was published in Ciência Hoje, a Portuguese online newspaper! Here it is –> auto-promo
The Il17 and Il17f genes are encoded at the same chromosomal locus, separated only by ~43.9 kb in mice and are transcribed in opposite directions. Even though, these constraints could have suggested these genes were regulated in parallel by similar mechanisms, this does not hold true. Dong and colleagues have identified a conserved noncoding sequence […]
It has long been shown that cells of the nervous system could communicate with cells of the immune system. For instance, the lymphoid organs are innervated by the peripheral nervous system, the sympathetic nervous system, and the parasympathetic nervous system. However, our understanding of local neural pathways that influence immune response at a precise point, […]
It is very important that all the European member states follow the same laws concerning the protection of the animals that are used in research laboratories. This is a reflexion that has to be fair for all parties: first the animal welfare of course, but then also the quality of the research. It is also […]
This is an interesting review to remind us of the flexibility of the immune response! It is widely accepted that secondary lymphoid tissues, such as spleen and lymph nodes, provide the basis for cooperative interactions between antigen-presenting cells, T and B cells. Although the widely held belief that adaptive immunity in general requires the structural […]
Even if SAP is required in CD4 T cells for GC responses, SAP-deficient mice develop normal numbers of CXCR5high ICOShigh putative TFh cells. Thus, the precise role for SAP has been elusive. In an interesting study Shane Crotty and colleagues have shed light on the complexity for the requirements for SAP. As markers have been […]
The early events that determine T follicular helper cell commitment in vivo are described in an elegant study from Joe Craft and colleagues. They confirmed that P-selectin glycoprotein ligand 1 (PSGL-1) is down-regulated in a population that are CXCR5high PD-1high, express BCL6 and IL-21 mRNA, and thus are TFh cells. The novelty is that they […]
First described in 1973 by Ralf Steinman, dendritic cells have since attracted considerable attention. Their properties of antigen capture, presentation and T cell activation, place them both as a key bridge between the innate and adaptive immunity, as well as a switch between tolerance and immunity. Although, the human and mouse DC network share many […]