212 papers
Immunology explores the intricate defense systems that keep our bodies safe from infections and disease. This field examines how our immune cells recognize threats, coordinate responses, and maintain a delicate balance between fighting invaders and avoiding self-harm. From understanding vaccine mechanisms to investigating autoimmune disorders, these studies reveal the dynamic biology protecting human health every day.
On Gist.Science, we ensure these critical discoveries remain accessible to everyone. We automatically process every new preprint in this category as it appears on bioRxiv, transforming complex research into both plain-language explanations and detailed technical summaries. This approach allows readers to grasp the core findings without getting lost in dense jargon, while still providing the depth needed for scientific inquiry.
Below are the latest immunology papers from bioRxiv, each accompanied by our curated summaries to help you navigate the newest breakthroughs in the field.
This paper argues that current machine learning approaches for predicting T-cell receptor (TCR) specificity are limited by flawed equilibrium-based training data and proposes a new framework that integrates cell-based kinetic measurements with machine learning to achieve more accurate and mechanistically grounded predictions.
This paper identifies a specific group of "keystone organisms"—primarily persistent herpesviruses and *Mycobacterium tuberculosis*—that shape human tissue immunity and can be distinguished from other pathogens by their ability to emerge across diverse anatomical niches during various forms of immune perturbation.
By using ischemic stroke as a model, this study demonstrates that engineering CD4-restricted CAR T cells to secrete brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) can shift their function from neuroinflammation to neuroprotection and tissue repair, providing a framework for treating neurodegenerative diseases.
This study demonstrates that frail older adults exhibit impaired macrophage phagocytosis and efferocytosis linked to dysregulated PPAR signaling and reduced respiratory microbiome diversity, suggesting a potential mechanism for increased infection susceptibility in this population.
This study demonstrates that pneumococcal vaccine response thresholds vary significantly by serotype, suggesting that implementing serotype-specific IgG concentrations rather than a single universal threshold would provide a more accurate assessment of functional immunity and patient vaccination status.
Long-term low-dose rapamycin treatment selectively suppresses the age-associated expansion of IL-17-producing gamma delta T cells and mitigates related neuroinflammation without significantly altering overall innate or adaptive immune cell populations.
Although T follicular helper (Tfh) cells express the RNA-binding protein ZFP36L1, its selective deletion from these cells surprisingly does not impair germinal center responses or affinity maturation, indicating that ZFP36L1 is dispensable for Tfh cell-mediated humoral immunity in this context.
This study reveals that AIRE primes chromatin in medullary thymic epithelial cells to enable ETS transcription factors (EHF and ELF3) to sustain peripheral tissue-specific antigen expression in post-AIRE descendants, thereby establishing a critical chromatin relay mechanism essential for central tolerance.
This study reveals that helminth antigen-conditioned dendritic cells drive Th2 polarization by suppressing glycolysis to fuel O-GlcNAcylation, which negatively regulates immune synapse formation via cytoskeletal control to dampen TCR signaling.
This study reveals that transient inhibition of mTOR during the first 16 hours of human T cell activation reprograms proteomic remodeling to imprint a stable memory-like state while preserving cytotoxic and inflammatory functions, identifying a critical early therapeutic window for enhancing vaccine efficacy.