{"id":224712,"date":"2025-11-07T16:10:27","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:10:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/a-toast-to-brd4-how-acidity-changes-the-immune-response"},"modified":"2025-11-07T16:10:27","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T22:10:27","slug":"a-toast-to-brd4-how-acidity-changes-the-immune-response","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2025\/11\/a-toast-to-brd4-how-acidity-changes-the-immune-response","title":{"rendered":"A toast to BRD4: How acidity changes the immune response"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

It started with wine. Or more precisely, a conversation about it. \u201cMy colleagues and I were talking about how some people think drinking wine may be anti-inflammatory,\u201d recalls Xu Zhou, Ph.D., from the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital. \u201cThere\u2019s no scientific ground for that, but we know wine is acidic.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around the same time, Zhou and his team were exploring a broader blind spot in immunology: the role of the tissue microenvironment (such as pH, oxygen, and salt concentration) in shaping immune function<\/a>. While most research had focused on cellular messengers like cytokines, Zhou was curious about how the physical and chemical makeup of tissues might influence immune cells<\/a>, especially in disease.<\/p>\n

Inspired by their wine conversation and intrigued by these overlooked components, Zhou\u2019s team launched a study to investigate how acidity affects immune cells. Their findings, published<\/a> in Cell<\/i>, show that a drop in pH can suppress immune responses by disrupting a protein called BRD4\u2014an important regulator of gene activity in immune cells. That small chemical shift could have big implications for treating inflammation-related diseases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It started with wine. Or more precisely, a conversation about it. \u201cMy colleagues and I were talking about how some people think drinking wine may be anti-inflammatory,\u201d recalls Xu Zhou, Ph.D., from the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition at Boston Children\u2019s Hospital. \u201cThere\u2019s no scientific ground for that, but we know wine is acidic.\u201d [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-224712","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-chemistry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224712","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224712"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224712\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224712"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224712"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224712"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}