News Brief By Lushna Mehra
When fighting off infections,
immune cells learn and remember from their experience in order to apply this
information to future battles.
The 2015 first edition of Immunity
discussed, specifically, the role of T-helper cells, which aid the regulation
of the immune system by releasing messenger substances, like cytokines. Dr. Kupz of the Institute for Infection
Biology in Berlin stated that we know T cells are able to release various
quantities of the messenger substances, but we previously believed the amount
to be random. It is now known that it is
possible that a T-helper cell is activated and then learns how much of which
cytokine it needs to produce to fight off an infection. A team of researchers from Charité—Universitätsmedizin,
Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology in Berlin, the University of
Heidelberg, the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, USA, and James Cook
University found that once T-helper cells defeat an infection, some
T-helper cells retain memory of the instance due to the amount of a specific
factor in the nucleus of the cells. Dr.
Kupz noted that in future interactions for the T-helper cells, memory T-cells
are activated in light of a new infection and are able to release a
pre-determined amount of cytokine. He
concludes that more research in this realm could lead to stronger, specific
immune reactions and could potentially aid in the reduction of misdirected
immune responses, such as unwarranted inflammation.
James Cook University.
"Immune cells: Learning from experience." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily,
20 February 2015.
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