Immune cells can simultaneously stimulate and inhibit killer cell activity.
Dendritic cells, which are responsible for teaching other immune cells to attack infected or mutated cells, face a dangerous predicament. To demonstrate that an enemy has invaded, they must change to look a little bit like the invader. And once they look like an enemy, they risk being treated like one by their newly trained pupils. New research from Rockefeller University shows how the body’s immune system gets around this paradox by using simultaneous signals to both activate and inhibit a killer cell’s immune response. Natural killer cells, which serve as a critical line of defense against invaders, can only attack efficiently after dendritic cells have programmed them to turn aggressive. The immunity-directing dendritic cells bind to the natural killer cells in order to activate the “seek and destroy” receptors on their surface. The two types of cells then form a synapse through which they communicate. more... http://www.physorg.com/news112285921.html _______________________________________________ NetBehaviour mailing list [email protected] http://www.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour
