Immune system has
several components like cytokines, lymphocytes, macrophages etc. CD-8 cell is
one major component produced by the host immune
system to fight pathogens like bacteria, virus etc. Upon exposure to any
invading pathogen like virus, CD8 cells multiply rapidly. At the initial stage
they are effector cells, acting like foot soldiers and killing the pathogen.
Once the pathogen is destroyed, most of these effector cells suicide to not
continue attacking the body’s own cells. Few effector CD8 cells that survive
become memory cells guarding the host from the respective pathogen and enacting
faster combat reaction upon exposure to same pathogen.
CAR T cell therapy gathered lot of attention
from the public for its effective use in immunotherapy against cancer and
chronic infections like HIV. Application of CD-8 cells in immunotherapy
has been discussed recently. The usual problem encountered is that CD8 cells
get exhausted or stop functioning properly in cancer and HIV infections. However recent research by Shomyseh Sanjabi
and her team have discovered a great finding which could offer a greater option
against cancer and chronic infections.
The team identified 2
molecules namely Sprouty 1 and Sprouty 2. These molecules are known to modify
the survival and development of effector and memory CD8 cells respectively. Upon
animal model research, the team found that in absence of these molecules in CD8
cells, the CD8 effector cells survived in larger numbers and became memory
cells. The memory cells without these molecules had better protective capacity
against bacterial pathogens than normal CD8 memory cells with Sprouty molecules.
In tumors, as tumor
cells consume lot of glucose the effector CD8cells get killed due to glucose
deprive however the CD8 cells without Sprouty 1& 2 molecules can survive
and function in a tumor environment upon consuming less glucose. Also the
memory CD8 cells without Sprouty molecules can tackle cancer cells and also
cells activated with latent virus in viral infections.
Hence the memory plays a good role in immunotherapy and the future engineering
of CAR Tcells in combination with genome editing technique like CRISPR can help
in future to eliminate the Sprouty molecules and employ CD8 cells against cancer
and infected cells.
To know more such
research or present your findings in the field, write to us at allergy@mehealthevents.org or drop
your interest at: Allergy
2018
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