{"id":32821,"date":"2016-12-20T17:47:25","date_gmt":"2016-12-21T01:47:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/researchers-map-genome-wide-changes-that-drive-t-cell-maturation-and-exhaustion"},"modified":"2017-06-04T13:57:01","modified_gmt":"2017-06-04T20:57:01","slug":"researchers-map-genome-wide-changes-that-drive-t-cell-maturation-and-exhaustion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/12\/researchers-map-genome-wide-changes-that-drive-t-cell-maturation-and-exhaustion","title":{"rendered":"Researchers map genome-wide changes that drive T cell maturation and exhaustion"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/researchers-map-genome-wide-changes-that-drive-t-cell-maturation-and-exhaustion.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>New study provides deeper insight into the immune system.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>In a bid to better understand the gene expression patterns that control T cell activity, researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology mapped genome-wide changes in chromatin accessibility as T cells respond to acute and chronic virus infections. Their findings, published in the Dec. 20, 2016 issue of <i>Immunity<\/i>, shed light on the molecular mechanisms that determine the fate of T lymphocytes and open new approaches to clinical intervention strategies to modulate T cell activity and improve immune function.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIdentifying the different factors that determine different T cell states and therefore their function helps us understand if T cells will be able or not to fight viral infections or tumor growth, and if they will be able or not to provide long-term protection,\u201d says the study\u2019s first author James Scott-Browne, a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Anjana Rao, a professor in the Division of Signaling and Gene Expression. \u201cWe may be able to revert the exhaustion phenotype of T cells and render them better able to fight tumors or chronic viral infections such as HIV, or generate better memory cells in response to vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When viruses invade or cells turn malignant, the immune system mobilizes a small cohort of na\u00efve or immature CD8 T cells, a crucial subdivision of the immune system charged with killing virus-infected and <a href=\"http:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/tags\/cancerous+cells\/\" rel=\"tag\" class=\"\">cancerous cells<\/a>. Upon activation, they mature and proliferate exponentially into highly specific effector T cells that eliminate virus-infected or otherwise compromised cells. After their job is done, most effector T cells die leaving behind only a small contingent of memory T cell that confer long-term protection.<\/p>\n<p><!-- Link: <a href=\"http:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2016-12-genome-wide-cell-maturation-exhaustion.html\">http:\/\/medicalxpress.com\/news\/2016&#45;12-genome-wide-cell-m...stion.html<\/a> --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>New study provides deeper insight into the immune system. In a bid to better understand the gene expression patterns that control T cell activity, researchers at the La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology mapped genome-wide changes in chromatin accessibility as T cells respond to acute and chronic virus infections. Their findings, published in the [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":370,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32821","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\/370"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32821"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65546,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32821\/revisions\/65546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}