Abstract
Dysregulating the regulators
Highlights
Two articles in this issue of Journal of Biology prompt a brief reflection on the regulation of adaptive immune responses
In one case the disruption is by dioxin and other aryl hydrocarbon environmental pollutants [3], in the other by helminth parasites [4]. In both cases the effect is immune suppression. Both invoke a class of cells known as regulatory T cells, they are mentioned only peripherally in the article on helminths, the main point of which is to draw attention to recent evidence that the increasing prevalence of asthma and other allergic disorders in developed countries may reflect immune hyperresponsiveness that evolved to counter chronic immunosuppression by parasites in less salubrious times. (Readers may recognize this as the so-called hygiene hypothesis.)
The three other subsets are known as TH1, TH2 and TH17 cells, all of which activate other immune cells of different types and with distinct functions, defined by the distinct cytokines by which they signal to the cells they activate
Summary
Two articles in this issue of Journal of Biology prompt a brief reflection on the regulation of adaptive immune responses. Both invoke a class of cells known as regulatory T cells, they are mentioned only peripherally in the article on helminths, the main point of which is to draw attention to recent evidence that the increasing prevalence of asthma and other allergic disorders in developed countries may reflect immune hyperresponsiveness that evolved to counter chronic immunosuppression by parasites in less salubrious times.
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