Warren symposium follows legacy of geneticist giant

If we want to understand how the brain creates memories, and how genetic disorders distort the brain’s machinery, then the fragile X gene is an ideal place to start. That’s why the Stephen T. Warren Memorial Symposium, taking place November 28-29 at Emory, will be a significant event for those interested in neuroscience and genetics. Stephen T. Warren, 1953-2021 Warren, the founding chair of Emory’s Department of Human Genetics, led an international team that discovered Read more

Mutations in V-ATPase proton pump implicated in epilepsy syndrome

Why and how disrupting V-ATPase function leads to epilepsy, researchers are just starting to figure Read more

Tracing the start of COVID-19 in GA

At a time when COVID-19 appears to be receding in much of Georgia, it’s worth revisiting the start of the pandemic in early 2020. Emory virologist Anne Piantadosi and colleagues have a paper in Viral Evolution on the earliest SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences detected in Georgia. Analyzing relationships between those virus sequences and samples from other states and countries can give us an idea about where the first COVID-19 infections in Georgia came from. We can draw Read more
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PD1

2B4: potential immune target for sepsis survival

Emory immunologists have identified a potential target for treatments aimed at reducing mortality in sepsis, an often deadly reaction to infection.

2B4 is an inhibitory molecule found on immune cells. You may have heard of PD1, which cancer immunotherapy drugs block in order to re-energize the immune system. 2B4 appears to be similar; it appears on exhausted T cells after chronic viral infection, and its absence can contribute to autoimmunity.

In their new paper in Journal of Immunology, Mandy Ford, Craig Coopersmith and colleagues show that 2B4 levels are increased on certain types of T cells (CD4+ memory cells) in human sepsis patients and in a mouse model of sepsis called CLP (cecal ligation + puncture). Genetically knocking out 2B4 or blocking it with an antibody both reduce mortality in the CLP model. The effect of the knockout is striking: 82 percent survival vs 13 percent for controls.

How does it work? When fighting sepsis, 2B4 knockout animals don’t have reduced bacterial levels, but they do seem to have CD4+ T cels that survive better. CD4+ T cells, especially memory cells, get killed in large numbers during sepsis, and this is thought to contribute to mortality. Read more

Posted on September 26, 2017 by Quinn Eastman in Immunology Leave a comment