Project description:
Cytotoxic T cells are a central part of our immune system. In the course of chronic viral infections or tumor diseases, a so-called "exhaustion" of these T cells sets in, which limits their ability to control viruses or tumors. By administering checkpoint inhibitors, this exhaustion can be at least partially reversed, which has revolutionized the therapy of many cancers.
The research group led by Dr. Veit Buchholz of the Technical University of Munich, in collaboration with the laboratory of Professor Axel Kallies of the University of Melbourne, now shows that the response of the immune system to checkpoint inhibitors, as well as the long-term maintenance of immune responses against chronic viral infections, is mediated by a tiny subset of stem cell-like T cells characterized by the transcription factor MYB, which is also essential for bone marrow stem cells.
Publication:
Tsui, C., Kretschmer, L., Rapelius, S., Gabriel, S. S., Chisanga, D., Knöpper, K., Utzschneider, D. T., Nüssing, S., Liao, Y., Mason, T., Torres, S. V., Wilcox, S. A., Kanev, K., Jarosch, S., Leube, J., Nutt, S. L., Zehn, D., Parish, I. A., Kastenmüller, W., Shi, W., Buchholz, V. R. & Kallies, A.*
MYB orchestrates T cell exhaustion and response to checkpoint inhibition. Nature 1–7 (2022).
*co-senior author
Submitting the Paper of the Month:
Else Kröner-Fresenius-Stiftung is using the series “Paper of the Month” to report in an exemplary and hot-off-the-press style on the outstanding work being done by the scientists it supports. We regularly present publications which have recently appeared in especially renowned journals, have emerged from foundation funding and been given appropriate acknowledgment. This is done in the respective categories “Original Paper” and “Review”. In the case of each of these publications, the first author and/or senior author are being funded by the foundation.
We invite all project managers, fellowship recipients and members of graduate study programs to send their work in accordance with the stated criteria as proposal for Paper of the Month to Ms. Anne Asschenfeldt (a.asschenfeldt@ekfs.de).
