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Browsing by Subject "Immune escape"
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Item HIV Vaccine Mystery and Viral Shell Disorder(MDPI, 2019-05) Goh, Gerard Kian-Meng; Dunker, A. Keith; Foster, James A.; Uversky, Vladimir N.; BioHealth Informatics, School of Informatics and ComputingHundreds of billions of dollars have been spent for over three decades in the search for an effective human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) vaccine with no success. There are also at least two other sexually transmitted viruses, for which no vaccine is available, the herpes simplex virus (HSV) and the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Traditional textbook explanatory paradigm of rapid mutation of retroviruses cannot adequately address the unavailability of vaccine for many sexually transmissible viruses, since HSV and HCV are DNA and non-retroviral RNA viruses, respectively, whereas effective vaccine for the horsefly-transmitted retroviral cousin of HIV, equine infectious anemia virus (EIAV), was found in 1973. We reported earlier the highly disordered nature of proteins in outer shells of the HIV, HCV, and HSV. Such levels of disorder are completely absent among the classical viruses, such as smallpox, rabies, yellow fever, and polio viruses, for which efficient vaccines were discovered. This review analyzes the physiology and shell disorder of the various related and non-related viruses to argue that EIAV and the classical viruses need harder shells to survive during harsher conditions of non-sexual transmissions, thus making them vulnerable to antibody detection and neutralization. In contrast, the outer shell of the HIV-1 (with its preferential sexual transmission) is highly disordered, thereby allowing large scale motions of its surface glycoproteins and making it difficult for antibodies to bind to them. The theoretical underpinning of this concept is retrospectively traced to a classical 1920s experiment by the legendary scientist, Oswald Avery. This concept of viral shapeshifting has implications for improved treatment of cancer and infections via immune evasion.Item IL-9 Producing Tumor-Infiltrating Lymphocytes and Treg Subsets Drive Immune Escape of Tumor Cells in Non-Small Cell Lung Cancer(Frontiers Media, 2022-04-20) Heim, Lisanne; Yang, Zuqin; Tausche, Patrick; Hohenberger, Katja; Chiriac, Mircea T.; Koelle, Julia; Geppert, Carol-Immanuel; Kachler, Katerina; Miksch, Sarah; Graser, Anna; Friedrich, Juliane; Kharwadkar, Rakshin; Rieker, Ralf J.; Trufa, Denis I.; Sirbu, Horia; Neurath, Markus F.; Kaplan, Mark H.; Finotto, Susetta; Microbiology and Immunology, School of MedicineAlthough lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, the mechanisms how lung cancer cells evade the immune system remain incompletely understood. Here, we discovered IL-9-dependent signaling mechanisms that drive immune evasion in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). We found increased IL-9 and IL-21 production by T cells in the tumoral region of the lung of patients with NSCLC, suggesting the presence of Th9 cells in the lung tumor microenvironment. Moreover, we noted IL-9 producing Tregs in NSCLC. IL-9 target cells in NSCLC consisted of IL-9R+ tumor cells and tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes. In two murine experimental models of NSCLC, and in vitro, IL-9 prevented cell death and controlled growth of lung adenocarcinoma cells. Targeted deletion of IL-9 resulted in successful lung tumor rejection in vivo associated with an induction of IL-21 and reduction of Treg cells. Finally, anti-IL-9 antibody immunotherapy resulted in suppression of tumor development even in established experimental NSCLC and was associated with reduced IL-10 production in the lung. In conclusion, our findings indicate that IL-9 drives immune escape of lung tumor cells via effects on tumor cell survival and tumor infiltrating T cells. Thus, strategies blocking IL-9 emerge as a new approach for clinical therapy of lung cancer.