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Immunological memory is one of the core topics of contemporary immunology. Yet there are many discussions about what this concept precisely means, which components of the immune system display it, and in which phyla it exists. Recent years have seen the multiplication of claims that immunological memory can be found in "innate" immune cells and in many phyla beyond vertebrates (including invertebrates, plants, but also bacteria and archaea), as well as the multiplication of concepts to account for these phenomena, such as "innate immune memory" or "trained immunity". The aim of this critical review is to analyze these recent claims and concepts, and to distinguish ideas that have often been misleadingly associated, such as memory, adaptive immunity, and specificity. We argue that immunological memory is a gradual and multidimensional phenomenon, irreducible to any simple dichotomy, and we show why adopting this new view matters from an experimental and therapeutic point of view.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/imr.12652 | DOI Listing |
Front Immunol
September 2025
Bacterial Scientific Area, GSK Vaccine, Siena, Italy.
Background: Protein-polysaccharide conjugate vaccines rely on the induction of T-cell-dependent responses that support germinal center (GC) reactions to potentiate the expansion of antigen-specific memory B-cell (MBC) populations and high-avidity antibody responses. The effects of adjuvants on B-cell and antibody responses are well described for protein antigens but remain largely unexplored for conjugated polysaccharidic antigens.
Methods: We assessed the effects of five adjuvants present in licensed vaccines (AS01, AS03, AS04, and aluminum hydroxide [Alum]) or under clinical evaluation (AS37) on the magnitude and quality of antigen-specific antibody responses and local/systemic B-cell responses.
Immune Netw
August 2025
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul 03722, Korea.
Developmental and epileptic encephalopathies (DEEs), including Infantile Epileptic Spasms Syndrome (IESS) and Lennox-Gastaut Syndrome (LGS), are severe pediatric conditions characterized by profound developmental delays and treatment-resistant epilepsy. Although steroid therapies provide some clinical benefits, the underlying immunological mechanisms remain poorly understood. In this study, we performed comprehensive immune profiling using multi-parametric flow cytometry on PBMCs from IESS (n=25) and LGS (n=9) patients, comparing them with age-matched healthy controls (n=54).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBest Pract Res Clin Haematol
September 2025
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA; Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center, Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA.
Immunotherapy, including immune checkpoint blockade, CART cells and bispecific antibodies have resulted in dramatic improvements in outcomes for patients with hematological malignancies, demonstrating the unique potency of the immune system in targeting malignant cells. The development of cancer vaccines aims to evoke an activated effector cell population and a memory response to provide long term immune surveillance to protect from relapse. Developing a potent cancer vaccine relies on identifying appropriate antigen targets, enhancing antigen presentation, and overcoming the immune suppressive milieu of the micro-environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCell
September 2025
Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA; Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Chevy Chase, MD 20815, USA. Electronic address:
Adaptation of intestinal helminths to vertebrates involved the evolution of strategies to attenuate host tissue damage to support parasite reproduction and dissemination of offspring to the environment. Helminths initiate the IL-25-mediated tuft cell-type 2 innate lymphoid cell (ILC2) circuit that enhances barrier protection of the host, although viable parasites can target and limit this pathway. We used IL-25 alone to create small intestinal adaptation, marked by anatomic and immunologic changes that persisted months after induction.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Exp Med
November 2025
Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Graduate School of Medicine, The University of Osaka, Osaka, Japan.
Tissue-resident memory T cells (TRM) remain in nonlymphatic barrier tissues for extended periods and are deeply involved in immune memory at the site of inflammation. Here, we employed multilayered single-cell analytic approaches including chromatin, gene, and protein profiling to characterize a unique CD4+ TRM subset present in the inflamed gut mucosa of Crohn's disease patients. We identified two key transcription factors, RUNX2 and BHLHE40, as regulators of pathologically relevant CD4+ TRM.
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