During an adaptive immune response, naive CD8 T cells differentiate into antigen-specific effector cells that release cytotoxic proteins and rapidly proliferate to kill infected cells. When the pathogen has cleared, the majority of effector cells undergo apoptosis while a selected pool becomes memory cells. The differentiation process from naive to memory cells is known to involve key transcription factors, but more recent studies suggest DNA methylation may also play a role. A recently-published article by Scharer et al. provides a deeper insight into the epigenetic regulation of the immune system by revealing genome-wide DNA methylation patterns that drive the differentiation of naive CD8 T cells into effector CD8 T cells.
No comments:
Post a Comment