Clarify the mechanism of invisibility for the immune system
2011/11/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria
Some microorganisms are invisible to the immune system. Now, researchers at the University of Washington have discovered how microorganisms achieve this capacity.
The key is the formation of T cells. T cells are specialized cells of the immune system that form in the thymus. That is, there they learn to differentiate antigens.
However, researchers have now shown that T cells also receive colon formation. Thus, they have seen that the receptors of colon T cells are different from those of T cells in the thymus. In addition, intestinal bacteria have been proven to be different and invisible to T cells.
Although research has been done with mice, researchers believe that something similar happens in people. They even consider research to be useful in understanding the origin of ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease.
The research has been published in the journal Nature. However, researchers have announced that they will continue to investigate, as they suspect that there is some mechanism to differentiate both types of harmful and safe bacteria. Finding this mechanism is therefore one of the main objectives of researchers.
