Growth Detection: A Novel Role for CD4 T-cells (87.20)

Abstract

Abstract One of the central goals of immunology has been to understand the cellular and molecular mechanisms of immune regulation. Progress on the cellular front has developed rapidly with the identification of distinct CD4 T-cell populations with unique functions and patterns of cytokine production. Similarly, the discovery of TLRs in the late 1990s resulted in rapid advances towards an understanding of the molecular mechanisms of immune regulation. Despite the progress being made on both the cellular and molecular fronts, however, many aspects of immune regulation remain unexplained. Two Th-cell populations - induced regulatory T-cells (iTreg) and Th17 cells have recently been characterized. How iTreg and Th17 cells integrate with other Th populations remains an active area of research. Recently, we proposed a novel mechanism of immune regulation based on detection of pathogen growth (Bewick et. al, PLoS ONE, 2009). We then showed how growth detection can arise naturally as a result of signaling interactions and maturation kinetics of iTreg and Th17 cells. Building off of the basic premise of this growth detection model, we now extend the iTreg/Th17 system to include additional immune effector cells. This allows us to show how the immune system is organized in such a way that it can accurately and robustly classify different pathogens based on growth rate.