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A link science didn't catch The discovery of this unknown immune interaction comes less than two years after Jonathan Kipnis and Antoine Louveau of the University of Virginia Health System (UVA) rewrote the textbooks with their discovery that our brain has a direct connection to our immune system — a connection never thought to exist, which could have profound effects in the quest to defeat diseases ranging from Alzheimer's to multiple sclerosis. Kenneth Tung MD, professor in the departments of pathology, microbiology, immunology, and cancer biology at the Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research at UVA, believes many cancer vaccines are likely failing simply due to researchers picking the wrong antigen targets.
While science textbooks insist a man's testes are barricaded from the immune system by an impenetrable wall of cells, research has now determined there's actually a very small door in that wall. Tung discovered that testes release antigens when producing sperm and antigens can ignite an immune response. As sperm production is a natural function of the body, the immune system ignores sperm antigens as non-lethal. This may explain why cancer vaccines designed to target antigens, are ignored by the immune system, and the vaccines fail.
The good news is that doctors can determine which antigens a patient's cancer cells release. By targeting antigens unnatural to the immune system, doctors may be able to greatly increase a vaccines' effectiveness. The finding may also be important for infertile couples. Almost 12 percent of men who suffer from infertility have an autoimmune response to their own sperm, meaning their immune system literally attacks their own sperm. A particular step in the formation of sperm can determine whether sperm antigens will trigger such an immune response, and doctors may be able to target new treatments to avert the response. Abstract Tung and his colleagues have published their findings in the Journal of Clinical Investigation. The research team consisted of Tung, of UVA's Department of Pathology, its Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Cancer Biology and its Beirne B. Carter Center for Immunology Research; Jessica Harakal; Hui Qiao; Claudia Rival; Jonathan C.H. Li; Alberta G.A. Paul: Karen Wheeler; Patcharin Pramoonjago; Constance M. Grafer; Wei Sun; Robert D. Sampson; Elissa W.P. Wong of the Center for Biomedical Research, Population Council; Prabhakara P. Reddi; Umesh S. Deshmukh; Daniel M. Hardy of Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center; Huanghui Tang of Northwestern University; C. Yan Cheng of the Center for Biomedical Research, Population Council; and Erwin Goldberg of Northwestern University. |
Mar 28, 2017 Fetal Timeline Maternal Timeline News News Archive ![]() Human sperm surround a human egg. In producing sperm, testes also
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