Beware of getting a tattoo if your immune system isn’t up to scratch, doctors warn

BMJ: Getting a tattoo may have some unexpected complications if your immune system isn’t up to scratch, warn doctors in the journalBMJ Case Reports. The warning comes after they treated a woman for chronic pain in her left hip, knee and thigh some months after she had been tattooed. She had been taking drugs to dampen down her immune system for several years after receiving a double lung transplant in 2009.

Fighting life-threatening bacteria without antibiotics

Bonn: Researchers at the University of Bonn and the Technical University of Munich discover the cause of infections in patients with cirrhosis of the liver. Patients suffering from liver cirrhosis often die of life-threatening bacterial infections. In these patients the immune cells are unable to eliminate the bacterial infections. Scientist at the University of Bonn and TU Munich have now discovered that type I IFN released by immune cells due to increased migration of gut bacteria into the cirrhotic liver incapacitate the immune system. Based on their findings, such life-threatening infections can be contained by strengthening the immune response alone – without antibiotics. The results have now appeared in the journal "Gut".

Natural killer cells have a memory

Bonn: Researchers at the Universities of Bonn and Munich decode an autoimmune mechanism. Researchers at the University of Bonn and the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität of Munich have decoded a new mechanism of how the immune system can specifically attack pigmented cells of the skin. It was previously believed that so-called natural killer cells did not have an immunological memory for the body's own tissues. However, the scientists have now been able to show that these special immune cells can indeed “remember” pigmented cells when they come into more frequent contact with a specific contact allergen. These results may provide new insights into the development of the skin-depigmenting disease vitiligo but may also offer new options for the treatment of malignant melanoma. These results have now been published in the renowned scientific journal “Immunity”.

How MRSA infection can permanently harm immune function

Harvard: Infections of the skin or other soft tissues by the hard-to-treat MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) bacteria appear to permanently compromise the lymphatic system, which is crucial to immune system function. In a report published online in Science Translational Medicine, Harvard Medical School investigators based at Massachusetts General Hospital describe findings that MRSA infection impairs the ability of lymphatic vessels to pump lymphatic fluid to lymph nodes in mouse models, which may contribute to the frequent recurrences of MRSA infection experienced by patients. 
“We found that MRSA produces toxins that kill the muscle cells critical to the pumping of lymph,” said senior study author Timothy Padera, HMS associate professor of radiation oncology at Mass General.

The yin-yang of cancer and infectious disease

Berkeley: Doctors have had great success using vaccines to boost the immune system to fight infectious diseases like smallpox and measles, but only recently have immune system boosters been tried against cancer. The growing success of such attempts — a booming field called immunotherapy that was pioneered at UC Berkeley — proves that studying the way the immune system deals with these two types of invaders, cancer cells and pathogens, could greatly improve therapies for both.

GPS for tracking immune cells

Stanford: In the culmination of a 10-year-long effort, researchers have demonstrated the first visualization of human immune cells as they track down brain tumor cells in living patients. A study led by researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine has for the first time demonstrated a way to visualize and monitor the behavior of immune cells used to treat cancer patients. The new technique allows researchers to see where immunotherapy cells go as they hunt down tumors in the human body. The imaging technique also reveals whether the immune cells, called T cells, have found a tumor; how many T cells have arrived at the tumor; and whether the T cells are alive.

what are antibodies and why are viruses like dengue worse the second time?

TheConversation: Our immune system is like a highly trained army. It fends off invading pathogens, usually very effectively. The problem is that sometimes it makes mistakes and attacks us. This can result in allergies, autoimmune diseases or just misfires in the immune system’s attack of invading cells.
But there’s another way the immune system can fail us – by throwing down the welcome mat for viruses on their second invasion.

Genetically modified immune cells with ‘suicide genes’ designed to attack cancers

TheConversation: Immunotherapies have been gaining in popularity in the last few years as a potential treatment for cancer. The idea is to use a patient’s own immune system to reject tumorous growth, either by vaccination, injection of substances that stimulate immunity, or cell transfer. T cells are a subset of white blood cells, which can specifically recognise and destroy virally infected or cancerous cells. This recognition is done via their T cell receptor. This receptor is designed to interact at the molecular level with proteins on the surface of all cells. If the T cell receptor is compatible with a given protein, binding occurs, which means the two cells become attached. The T cell receptor can recognise proteins on target cells with sharp discrimination. If the protein is of the “self”, binding does not occur and the T cell does not react. If the protein is a viral protein, or a modified self protein in a cancerous cell, strong binding induces the T cell to destroy the abnormal cell.

How the Immune System Controls the Human Biological Clock in Times of Infection

Pennsylvania: An important link between the human body clock and the immune system has relevance for better understanding inflammatory and infectious diseases, discovered collaborators at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and Trinity College, Dublin. In a study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they report how a critical white blood cell called the macrophage, when exposed to bacteria, makes the biological clock inside the macrophage stop, allowing it to become inflamed.

Bursting the Bubble of Bubble Baby Disease

UCLA: Only weeks after giving birth to fraternal twins in 2012, Alysia Padilla-Vaccaro felt something was wrong with one of her daughters, Evangelina. “I was told that it was the stress, or the fear of being a new mom, but I just knew something wasn’t right,” says Padilla- Vaccaro. “Then I was informed that Evangelina had absolutely no immune system, that anything that could make her sick would kill her. It was literally the worst time of my life.” The baby had a genetic condition called adenosine deaminase-deficient severe combined immunodeficiency, or ADA-deficient SCID. Often called bubble baby disease — children born with SCID must be kept in controlled, isolated environments — the condition can, if untreated, be fatal within the first year of life.

Zinc deficiency linked to immune system response

Oregon: Zinc, an important mineral in human health, appears to affect how the immune system responds to stimulation, especially inflammation, new research from Oregon State University shows. Zinc deficiency could play a role in chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, cancer and diabetes   that involve inflammation. Such diseases often show up in older adults, who are more at risk for zinc deficiency.

Extreme close-up on immunity (video)

UNSW: Every second our immune cells make life or death decisions to activate or not. How do we switch these cells on? UNSW Professor Katharina Gaus investigates.

Scientists uncover new role for neurotransmitter that helps fight infection

Imperial College. UK: Scientists have shed new light on the complexities of the immune system that could help develop vaccines to boost natural defences against disease.

NIH researchers reveal link between powerful gene regulatory elements and autoimmune diseases

NIH. US: Investigators with the National Institutes of Health have discovered the genomic switches of a blood cell key to regulating the human immune system. The findings, published in Nature today, open the door to new research and development in drugs and personalized medicine to help those with autoimmune disorders such as inflammatory bowel disease or rheumatoid arthritis.

Scientists identify a new population of regulatory T-cells

Mainz University. Germany: Discovery improves understanding of the cause of allergic asthma and may serve as an early diagnostic marker. When the mucosal surfaces in the lungs of healthy people come into contact with allergenic substances, so-called regulatory T cells also known as Treg cells, are activated. These are capable of actively preventing the development of allergies. However, if these regulatory mechanisms malfunction the cells of the immune system attack innocuous substances which enter the body from the environment, ultimately leading to the development of atopic diseases such as allergic asthma. In western countries, asthma is the most common chronic disease in children under the age of 15 years.

The secrets of the immune system explored using Nobel prize-winning technology

Karolinska Institute. Sweden: The inventors of the nanoscope were awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry last year. The new technology of super-resolved fluorescence microscopy has made it possible to study molecules on a nanoscale. It is for example possible to look at how proteins form aggregates in Parkinson’s disease, or what the connections between the nerve cells of the brain look like. This technology is now also being used within immunology to study the cells of the immune system. 

Skin based immunity secrets revealed

Melbourne University. Australia: A team of international scientists has discovered a new mechanism by which immune cells in the skin function act as the body’s ‘border control’, revealing how these cells sense whether lipid or fat-like molecules might indicate the presence of foreign invaders.

Skin Microbes and the Immune Response

NIH. US: Skin is a barrier that serves as one of the body’s first lines of defense against harmful microbes. Specialized immune cells within skin tissue help to fight invading organisms. Yet the skin hosts diverse communities of beneficial bacteria, collectively known as the skin microbiota. These microbes that naturally colonize the skin are referred to as commensals.

Environment, not genes, plays starring role in human immune variation, study finds

Stanford University. US: Improving gene-sequencing technologies have focused immunologists’ attention on the role of genes in diseases. But it appears the environment is an even greater factor in the human immune response.. A study of twins conducted by Stanford University School of Medicine investigators shows that our environment, more than our heredity, plays the starring role in determining the state of our immune system, the body’s primary defense against disease. This is especially true as we age, the study indicates.

Tumor suppressor protein plays key role in maintaining immune balance

St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital scientists have discovered that a protein widely known for suppressing tumor formation also helps prevent autoimmune diseases and other problems by putting the brakes on the immune response. The research was published recently online ahead of print in the scientific journal Nature Immunology.