Learner1
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Mechanism for Exhausted T Cells
- Thread starter Learner1
- Start date
The team of researchers said that the protein they have identified, called TOX, is responsible for causing exhaustion and non-responsiveness in T cells, a group of white blood cells that play a key role in the immune system.
Sometimes infections persist over the course of several months, causing chronic diseases. This puts tremendous pressure on the immune system, which on the one hand tries to actively eliminate these threats while on the other hand, also curbs its own activity so as not to cause collateral damage to healthy cells, chronic inflammation or autoimmune diseases. Thus, T cells often enter a state of exhaustion, which slows down their activity, and they fail to fully get rid of the disease the body is fighting, such as in the case of cancer.
We demonstrated that the protein TOX is a master regulator of exhaustion state in T cells,” said Prof. Cyrille Cohen, a cancer immunologist at the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, who participated in the study. “This protein, when active in T cells, is able to drive them into a state of severe non-responsiveness.”
Now, with this information in hand we can think about how to neutralize some of these barriers so that we may restore the normal function of the immune system, even in chronic diseases, to better fight cancer or viral diseases,” Cohen said in the statement.
Sometimes infections persist over the course of several months, causing chronic diseases. This puts tremendous pressure on the immune system, which on the one hand tries to actively eliminate these threats while on the other hand, also curbs its own activity so as not to cause collateral damage to healthy cells, chronic inflammation or autoimmune diseases. Thus, T cells often enter a state of exhaustion, which slows down their activity, and they fail to fully get rid of the disease the body is fighting, such as in the case of cancer.
We demonstrated that the protein TOX is a master regulator of exhaustion state in T cells,” said Prof. Cyrille Cohen, a cancer immunologist at the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at Bar-Ilan University, who participated in the study. “This protein, when active in T cells, is able to drive them into a state of severe non-responsiveness.”
Now, with this information in hand we can think about how to neutralize some of these barriers so that we may restore the normal function of the immune system, even in chronic diseases, to better fight cancer or viral diseases,” Cohen said in the statement.
Strawberry
Senior Member
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- Seattle, WA USA
Is there anything that can be done to get this protein working again?