When our body is confronted with an infection, it reacts with inflammation and fever. It is a sign that the immune system is doing its job and activating many cells, much like soldiers in an army. The dendritic cells (CD) are in a way the generals of this army. They can precisely activate and order soldiers to kill infected cells using antigens. Which, in other words, allows to trigger immune responses in the body.
Several teams of scientists from the VIB-UGent Center for Inflammation Research in Belgium, authors of a study published in the journal Immunity, analyzed mice with respiratory viral infections (pneumonia and influenza) using single-cell technologies. This unicellular resolution allowed them to finely separate the cells derived from the monocyte from the dendritic cells during their reaction to the infection.
Researchers have discovered that these cells derived from monocytes do exist, but do not have antigens. This new type of hybrid cell by the scientific name of inf-cDC2 combines monocytes, macrophages and dendritic cells and ensures a better form of immunity.
Hope for Covid-19 treatment research
“It was a big surprise to us. We were all taught that cells derived from monocytes are excellent antigen-presenting cells, especially in the event of inflammation. Now we show that this is actually a new type of hybrid cell that does all the work. It really changes what we know about the immune system and it’s very important knowledge to understand respiratory viral infections and other inflammatory diseases, “says Bart Lambrecht, who participated in the research.
“Thanks to the use of single-cell technologies, we have been able to harmonize all the discoveries of recent years and identify the different types of cells involved. In the future, it will be very interesting to see under what other inflammatory conditions these inf -cDC2 are generated and how they can potentially be targeted therapeutically “, adds her colleague Charlotte Scott.
The researchers also believe that these results represent direct relevance to the current Covid-19 pandemic, also caused by a respiratory virus. In particular in the emergency treatment currently under study which consists in using the blood plasma of patients healed from Covid-19, in order to provide antibodies to the patients.
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