Article: Immune cells for microbiota surveillance, 2019, Oh and Unutmaz

Andy · Oct 27, 2019

The immune system has coevolved with the microbial community that inhabits body surfaces and mucosal barriers. Although this commensal microbiota is critical for maintaining healthy host physiology, it can cause pathology when the body surface barriers are breached. How the immune system maintains this homeostasis with microbiota remains poorly understood. Specialized immune cells, called mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells, specifically recognize and respond to microbial metabolites and are thought to be important in microbial defense, although their function remains unclear. On pages 445 and 494 of this issue, Constantinides et al. (1) and Legoux et al. (2), respectively, show that commensal bacteria control development of MAIT cells in the thymus and their expansion within mucosal tissues. The development of MAIT cells depends on a specific developmental window of early-life exposure to defined microbial communities, and a distinct MAIT cell subset in the skin promotes wound healing.
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Paywall, https://science.sciencemag.org/content/366/6464/419
Scihub, https://sci-hub.se/10.1126/science.aaz4014

Andy · Oct 28, 2019

JAX CRC investigators Derya Unutmaz and Julia Oh have written a Science Immunology perspective review on two exciting articles that have just been published in Science, which show very close interactions between an immune cell subtype called mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells and the microbiota. MAIT cells are a special type of T cell that are stimulated by vitamin B2 derivatives that have been produced by bacteria, and it is thought that MAIT cells control the immune response to bacterial, fungal and even some viral infections.

The first article, by M.G. Constantinides et al., shows that commensal, or friendly, bacteria control the development of MAIT cells in the thymus, and the second, by F. Legoux et al., shows that these commensal bacteria also control the expansion of MAIT cells into the mucosal tissues and specifically play a role in the skin and in wound healing. Overall, these two studies combined illustrate how in mice, development and expansion of MAIT cells are tightly linked to exposure to commensal microbiota during a crucial early-life developmental stage. The studies further illustrate the additional complexity within the MAIT cells, and identify a subset with unique function in tissue repair.
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https://jaxmecfs.com/2019/10/28/science-perspective-immune-cells-for-microbiota-surveillance/

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Article: Immune cells for microbiota surveillance, 2019, Oh and Unutmaz

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Article: Immune cells for microbiota surveillance, 2019, Oh and Unutmaz

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