About the episode
Why do some people have few symptoms while others become seriously ill when infected with a virus such as the flu or Covid-19?
To find out, PhD student Laura Van Eyndhoven of Eindhoven University of Technology looked at how individual cells behave when they are infected with a virus.
When a virus invades, only a small fraction of infected cells, called first responders, let other cells in their environment know that they are infected. To let uninfected cells and immune cells know that the body is under attack, these first responders produce specific signaling proteins. They tell the other cells that something is wrong and that they should do the same.
It’s just not good if too much of these proteins are produced. That increases the chance that someone will develop an autoimmune disease. If too little is made, the virus will not be cleaned up properly. If production starts too late, then overcompensation can be made with too much protein. So it sounds pretty close.
Whether or not someone develops symptoms has something to do with that protein production, it is suspected. That is what Van Eyndhoven started looking at immune cell by immune cell. By incorporating her discoveries about how those cells communicate into computer models, she saw that only 1 to 3 percent of the cells are first responders. And they don’t suddenly take on that task, their function is predestined.
These important insights into the role of individual immune cells can hopefully lead to personalized therapies for cancer and autoimmune diseases in the future.
Read more about the research here: How do cells communicate about a virus infection?
