Study reveals how long-term infection and inflammation impairs immune response as we age eurekalert.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from eurekalert.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
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When a person has an infection, the body activates immune responses to fight it. IFNγ is an inflammatory molecule produced by the immune system that helps fight infections. However, long-term exposure to IFNγ has undesirable consequences - it irreversibly exhausts blood stem cells, the progenitors of all blood cells, including immune cells, by triggering their proliferation and excessive terminal differentiation. Lacking immune cells, patients eventually are unable to fight infections.
Baylor College of Medicine researchers investigated the mechanism by which IFNγ mediates depletion of blood stem cells, which are normally quiescent, meaning they are in a dormant state until activated when stimulated. They showed in the journal