Regulation of the immune response: the role of integrin alphavbeta8 and TGF-beta in immune homeostasis and response to pathogens.

免疫系统的功能是检测并摧毁进入人体的有害病原体。一旦感染，免疫系统迅速被激活，以确保尽快处理威胁。然而，对于健康人来说，保持免疫系统处于静止状态以防止身体组织受到攻击是至关重要的；导致自身免疫性疾病的过程。研究的一个重要领域是了解控制休眠和活跃免疫系统之间平衡的途径和分子。我们最近发现了一种重要的途径，可以防止免疫系统攻击身体的组织。当一种叫做整合素- α - β 8的蛋白质分子不存在于免疫系统的树突状细胞中时，就会发生严重的自身免疫性疾病。这里提出的工作旨在更详细地研究这一途径，研究免疫系统中哪些特定类型的细胞是重要的，并确定在主动免疫应答感染过程中这一途径发生了什么。这项工作将为动物和人类如何成功应对感染，以及免疫系统如何受到严格调节以预防自身免疫性疾病提供重要见解。

The immune system functions to detect and destroy harmful pathogens that enter the body. Upon infection, the immune system is rapidly activated, to ensure the threat is dealt with as quickly as possible. However, in healthy individuals it is vital that the immune system is kept in a resting state to prevent tissues of the body from being attacked; a process that results in debilitating autoimmune disease. A vital area of research is concerned with understanding the pathways and molecules that control the balance between a resting and active immune system. We have recently identified a vital pathway which prevents the immune system from attacking tissues of the body. When a protein molecule called integrin alphavbeta8 is not present on the dendritic cells of the immune system, severe autoimmune disease occurs. The work proposed here aims to study this pathway in more detail, looking at which specific types of cell in the immune system are important, and to determine what happens to this pathway during active immune responses to infection. Such work will provide important insights into how animals and humans successfully deal with infection, and how the immune system is tightly regulated to prevent autoimmune disease.