2022
June
New GEMM allows for evaluation of the immunopeptidome in vivo
June 29, 2022
The immunopeptidome – the repertoire of peptide:MHC (pMHC) molecules presented on the surface of a cell – can reveal a lot about cancer cells and potential antigenic targets for cancer immunotherapy. However, current approaches to study the immunopeptidome in vivo are limited to heterogeneous bulk tumor or lysate samples, which do not allow for...
Thymus cells take on various shapes to select T cells
June 22, 2022
The epithelium of the thymus plays a crucial role in T cell maturation, providing positive selection for MHC recognition by cortical thymic epithelial cells and negative selection for self-antigens by medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs) and antigen-presenting cells. mTECs ectopically express peripheral-tissue antigens (PTAs), and the transcription factor Aire has been implicated as...
Identifying biomarkers for chemo-immunotherapy outcomes in PDAC
June 15, 2022
Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) responds notoriously poorly to treatment, including immune checkpoint blockade; combination chemotherapies are the standard of care, but clinical responses remain deficient. Recently, studies in murine PDAC models improved treatment efficacy by combining chemotherapy with a CD40 agonist antibody and immune checkpoint blockade, a strategy that has now advanced to...
New vaccine attracts T and NK cells to uninviting tumors
June 8, 2022
Since most cancer vaccines target antigens presented by MHC, the efficacy of such vaccines can be significantly impacted by the downregulation of antigen processing and presentation by tumor cells, which is a common feature in many cancer types. To circumvent this issue, Badrinath et al. developed a new vaccine strategy that enhances NK cell...
Dressed to kill: wearing tumor cell-derived pMHC helps DCs prime T cell responses
June 1, 2022
Antigen cross-presentation by dendritic cells (DCs) is traditionally thought of as the primary mechanism underlying CD8+ T cell priming against tumors, but evidence of an alternative antigen presentation pathway, DC cross-dressing with tumor-derived peptide:MHC-I, has also been observed. In a study recently published in Immunity, McNabb et al. investigated the contributions of this...
