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Breakthrough in understanding human immune response has potential for the development of new drug therapies




A team of researchers at Trinity College Dublin’s School of Medicine has gained new insights into a protein in the human immune system that plays a key role in the protective response to infection and inflammation. The research findings have just been published in the internationally renowned peer-reviewed Journal of Biological Chemistry.

The TCD researchers investigated whether signalling via a protein known as the ‘LFA-1 integrin’ influences gene expression in immune cells called ‘T-cells’. In doing so, they discovered what is called “ a genetic signature”, that is a group of genes responding to the signal that make T-cells fail to respond to a controlling molecule called transforming growth factor-β (TGF-β).

“This is a bit like removing the handbrake and setting the immune system into action,” says Professor of Medicine, Dermot Kelleher who led the research.... Read More - http://www.msrc.co.uk/index.cfm/fuseact ... ageid/1100

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