Journal
IMMUNOTHERAPY
Volume 6, Issue 1, Pages 59-70Publisher
FUTURE MEDICINE LTD
DOI: 10.2217/imt.13.157
Keywords
APCs; autoimmune diseases; cancer immunotherapy; central tolerance; danger theory; graft-versus-host disease; immune tolerance; immunity; T cells
Categories
Funding
- VCU Massey Cancer Center
- Commonwealth Foundation for Cancer Research
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Although self-nonself' and danger' theories have improved our understanding of the immune system, successful immunotherapy of cancer and many autoimmune diseases still remain far from reach. This indicates that our knowledge of how the immune system decides to respond effectively or ineffectively is limited. Emerging evidence suggest that decision-making during the immune response is not solely determined by nonself' entity of the antigen or damage-associated danger' signals. This article provides an overview of the self-nonself' and danger' models, and suggests that adaptation' signals are needed to guarantee immunological tolerance that has been observed during the immune response toward self', nonself' or even danger'. This should be facilitated by dynamic expression of adapting receptors (ARs) and adapting ligands on cells of the immune system and other somatic cells. Any alterations in the expression of ARs on certain tissues would result in tissue-specific autoimmune diseases or spontaneous regression of cancer. Identification of such ARs and their nominal adapting ligands could lead to the discovery of currently unknown receptors and their implications in the treatment of cancer, solid organ transplantation and autoimmune diseases.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available