Some latest achievements in immunology research

Liu, Wei

Vertebrates have evolved to protect themselves against infections by two different means: innate immunity and adaptive immunity, while invertebrates rely on innate immunity only. Both immune responses are tightly regulated in all organisms to prevent over-reaction and maintain immunological homeostasis [2] [3] [4] . In 1989, Janeway proposed a revolutionary concept that adaptive immunity is initiated by pattern recognition of innate immunity [5] . In a minireview article published on the special issue of immunology, Liu et al. [6] provided the first experimental evidence that microbial recognition by the innate immune system turns on the adaptive immune system and explained how the immune system controls the balance between sensing pathogenassociated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and the self-dangerassociated molecular patterns (DAMPs). Their previous work demonstrated the existence of costimulatory activity of bacterial components and the need of cis-presentation of both antigen and costimulartors for T cell activation [7, 8] .