Some latest achievements in immunology research

Liu, Wei

Dendritic cells (DCs) are professional antigen-presenting cells within the immune system, crucial for the innate and adaptive immune responses to infections. Plasmacytoid dendritic cells (pDCs), an important type of dendritic cells, represent a unique and crucial immune cell population capable of producing type I interferons (IFNs) in response to viral infection [22] . Tang et al. [23] working in the laboratory from which pDCs were indentified 10 year ago, dedicated another chapter by reviewing the remarkable progress within the past decade in understanding pDC biology, with focusing on the molecular mechanisms in antiviral immunity and autoimmunity [23] . Cellular properties, including the morphology, surface phenotype, development, location and migration of human pDCs are recounted in the first part, while physiological and pathophysiological functions of pDCs in both antiviral immunity and autoimmunity are narrated in the following part. Increasingly available data suggest that pDCs sense nucleic acids through TLR7 and TLR9, two members of the Toll-like receptor family [24, 25] , and link innate and adaptive immunity by promoting the antiviral functions of myeloid dendritic cells (mDCs), natural killer (NK) cells, T cells and B cells [26] . Considerable emerging evidences argue that the chronically activated pDCs and the IFN- that they produce in response to self DNA/RNA are contributing factors in the pathogenesis of some autoimmune diseases, such as systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) and psoriasis. Despite greatly enhanced understanding of pDC biology achieved recently, a number of fascinating questions requiring further investigation are crucial to develop safe and effective immunotherapy for viral infectious diseases and autoimmune diseases.