SPEAKER
Prof. Michael LOHOFF
Director of the Institute of Medical
Microbiology and Hospital Hygiene,
Philipps University Marburg,
President of the German Society of
Immunology (DGfI), Berlin, Germany
HOST:
Department of Infection and Immunity
RESPONSIBLE LIH SCIENTIST:
Prof. Dirk Brenner
(dirk.brenner@lih.lu)
www.lih.lu
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DIFFERENTIATION OF T CELLS FOR CYTOKINE PRODUCTION
ABSTRACT
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In recent years, our lab was interested in the
role of a family of transcription factors, the
Interferon-Regulatory-Factors (IRFs) for T
helper cell differentiation. In this regard, we
have contributed to the finding that IRF1 is a
very important pro Th1 acting factor: IRF1
independently targets an amazing variety of
genes which are implicated in Th1 differentiation.
As a consequence, IRF1 deficiency creates a
strong bias for Th2 responses and we have
demonstrated implications of this bias during
infection with the parasite Leishmania major
or the bacterial pathogen Helicobacter pylori.
Also, we showed that IRF1 is a susceptibility
gene for atopy in the human.
In contrast to IRF1, our work has attributed
important roles during Th2, Th9, Th17 and
follicular T helper (TFH), but not Th1 differentiation
to the family member IRF4. As an important
consequence, IRF4 deficient mice are totally
resistant to the development of EAE, a Th17
supported mouse model for multiple sclerosis.
Furthermore, these mice lack germinal
centers (GC) in their inborn lymphoid tissue.
This
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deficiency has striking effects on the development of draining lymph nodes
and TFH cells during leishmaniasis: after initial
hyperplasia, the lymph node cells disappear
due to apoptosis, accompanied by an inability
for induced germinal center GC formation.
Both, cell death and GC formation can be rescued
by wild-type CD4+ T cells.
This divergent role of IRF4 is not limited to T
cell differentiation. Others have shown that
IRF4 represents a disease-determining risk
factor during lymphoma. Despite this, our recent
data demonstrate that old IRF4 deficient mice
are prone to spontaneous lymphoma
development, i.e. pro- and anti-proliferative
characteristics of IRF4 are both present, even
in lymphoma.
In this talk, I will first give a general overview
on T cell differentiation in the context of
cytokine production with a particular touch
on plasticity. Thereafter, I will integrate these
principles into our above mentioned work on
IRFs and in particular IRF4.
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* Opposite Luxembourg Institute of Health, House of BioHealth, 29, rue Henri Koch L-4354 Esch/Alzette
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Supported by: |
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