Researchers at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have discovered
the mechanism by which immune cells called regulatory T cells keep
themselves intact and functional during their demanding task of holding
the immune system in check. Such T cells are key to preventing the
immune system from attacking the body in autoimmune disease.
The researchers said their findings suggest that drugs influencing
this protective mechanism could be used to alert the immune system to
fight cancers.
Led by corresponding author Hongbo Chi, Ph.D., a member of the St. Jude Department of Immunology, the research appeared on the Nature Immunology website today as an advance publication.
The researchers discovered that once regulatory T cells are
activated to begin their work, they are protected by a kind of cellular
"cleanup" process called autophagy. This natural destructive biological
mechanism targets and degrades molecules that are no longer needed,
essentially ridding the cell of molecular garbage. Until these studies,
no one knew how regulatory T cells maintained themselves when activated.
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