Researchers Engineer ‘Signposting’ Molecules to Guide Immune Cells

Submitted by ROrritt on 11 October 2017

A team of researchers have manufactured new molecules that act as signposts for the immune system. The molecules, known as ‘antibody-recruiting molecules targeting fungi’ (ARM-Fs), bind to fungal cells and attract T cells to their location.

The researchers described their findings in a paper titled ‘Neutralization of Pathogenic Fungi with Small-Molecule Immunotherapeutics’, which was published in the journal Angewandte Chemie last month.

Professor Muthusamy, who co-authored the article, talked about the history of the lab that hosted the study in an article for the Yale Daily News: ‘this lab has been focused on recruiting immune cells to kill pathogenic cells for quite some time now, and we have been concentrating on HIV-infected cells and cancer cells so far’.

But in their most recent study, the researchers used a Fungal model – Candida Albicans. They found that the ARM-Fs successfully bound to the cell walls C. Albicans, prompting T cells to engulf and destroy the invading pathogen.

The authors suggest that their findings could lead to new treatments, which assist the body’s own immune system to find and deal with fungal infection.