The Jackson Laboratory’s Roopenian lab has identified cell populations that might shed light on origins of autoimmune diseases.
Many autoimmune disorders involve self-reactivity – immune cells failing to distinguish between pathogens and healthy cells, and therefore destroying important parts of the body. In a paper published in
Cell Reportsthis week, a team led by Jackson Laboratory (JAX) Professor
Derry Roopenian, Ph.D., describes newly observed immune cell types that are prone to this dangerous trait.
This paper represents the Ph.D. thesis work of Elisabeth Marnik, who is the lead author on the paper. In 2016, Marnik became the first graduate of the “JAX Track” mammalian genetics
Ph.D. program, a collaboration between JAX and Tufts University. She is now a postgraduate researcher at Mount Desert Island Biological Laboratory.
Interleukin 21 (IL-21) is a regulatory protein that induces the proliferation of anti-viral and anti-tumor immune cells. IL-21 is normally produced by mature TFH helper cells. Marnik and other members of the Roopenian lab noticed that a subset of helper cells express IL-21 soon after birth – much earlier than expected. These naturally occurring cells, dubbed nTH21 cells, tend towards self-reactivity, making them a likely candidate for involvement in autoimmune diseases.
