jnmaciuch
Senior Member (Voting Rights)
I for one am open to the idea of an adaptive immune shift, though I think metabolism is the link that could define a positive feedback loop. Given that a shift to aerobic glycolysis seems to be necessary for interferon gamma production (at least in NK cells and CD8s, from what I've been reading), I am wondering about the possibility of a continuous feedback loop between macrophages and some lymphocyte population.I can otherwise see quite a bit of overlap with what I have been mulling over, in terms of cells being inhibited from full functioning by an immune signal, but I am still tending to think we need an adaptive immune shift involved.
i.e. Lymphocyte releases interferon gamma, which when combined with some other stimulus causes [edit: some metabolic reprogramming in macrophages that causes them] to release a factor that encourages aerobic glycolysis in the lymphocytes, which then continue to produce more interferon gamma despite the absence of a continued upstream stimulus.
This theory, however, relies on metabolic reprogramming in the lymphocytes being necessary and sufficient for interferon gamma production. If this is the case, then the main question becomes: how is this feedback loop normally turned off in healthy individuals, and why isn't that off switch getting triggered in ME?
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