Dendritic cells

Whty is it in new?
  • Sci­en­tists in Swe­den claim to have suc­cess­fully re­pro­grammed mouse and hu­man skin cells into im­mune cells called den­dritic cells.
  • The process is “quick and ef­fec­tive”, and al­lows di­rect re­pro­gram­ming for in­duc­ing im­mu­nity.
  • The find­ing opens up the pos­si­bil­ity of de­vel­op­ing novel den­dritic cell-based im­munother­a­pies against can­cer.
Dendritic cells
  • Dendritic cells (DCs) are the most potent professional antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in vivo, capable of both tolerance induction and the initiation of primary T-cell responses.
  • A number of DC subsets have been described in both men and mice with unique functional attributes ascribed to a few.
  • Func­tion- Im­mune sys­tem’s sen­tinels.
  • Task-
  1. To scan our tis­sues for for­eign par­ti­cles, such as bac­te­ria, viruses or can­cer cells, and to de­vour them.
  2. Break down the par­ti­cles into smaller pieces, known as anti­gens, and present them on the sur­face to the im­mune sys­tem’s killer cells (T-cells).
  3. In this way, the killer cells learn which in­fec­tious agents and can­cer cells they are to search for and kill.
  • Cancer effects- Can­cer can af­fect the den­dritic cells in such a way that they get lost or be­come dys­func­tional and there­fore re­searchers are on the look­out for new ways to gen­er­ate den­dritic cells for ev­ery pa­tient.
  • Three es­sen­tial pro­teins (PU.1, IRF8 and BATF3) are suf­fi­cient to change the iden­tity of mouse cells and make them den­dritic.
Source
The Hindu




Posted by Jawwad Kazi on 10th Dec 2018
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