{"id":237886,"date":"2026-05-28T03:52:25","date_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:52:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-developing-immune-cells-fine-tune-their-signals"},"modified":"2026-05-28T03:52:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-28T08:52:25","slug":"how-developing-immune-cells-fine-tune-their-signals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/05\/how-developing-immune-cells-fine-tune-their-signals","title":{"rendered":"How developing immune cells fine-tune their signals"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/how-developing-immune-cells-fine-tune-their-signals.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Researchers at VIB, Ghent University, and VUB have uncovered how two proteins essential for immune cell development work together at the molecular level. The findings provide important insights into a critical mechanism that mediates the integration of molecular signals received from immunological threats. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nature.com\/articles\/s41467-026-73359-8\" target=\"_blank\">Their work<\/a> appears in Nature Communications.<\/p>\n<p>T cells undergo a strict <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-06-immune-cell-feedback-thymus-complex.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">selection process<\/a> in the thymus before they become fully functional. This ensures that healthy T cells can recognize immunological threats while avoiding attacks against the body\u2019s own tissues. Dysregulation of this process can contribute to autoimmune diseases or immune deficiencies.<\/p>\n<p>For nearly two decades, scientists have known that a protein called Themis is essential for this developmental checkpoint. However, exactly how Themis worked at the molecular level remained unclear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers at VIB, Ghent University, and VUB have uncovered how two proteins essential for immune cell development work together at the molecular level. The findings provide important insights into a critical mechanism that mediates the integration of molecular signals received from immunological threats. Their work appears in Nature Communications. T cells undergo a strict selection [\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],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-237886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237886","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=237886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/237886\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=237886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=237886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=237886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}