innate immunity

Bacterial superorganisms must evolve defenses to fight off infections, and microbiologists found that they use a weapons cache coincidentally similar to that of the human immune system.

Smoking leaves epigenetic marks on DNA long after cessation, with consequences for adaptive immunity.

Bats stay healthy while hosting some of the world’s deadliest viruses. Scientists are just beginning to understand how.

In people with the genetic condition, inflammation can cause a mild infection to snowball out of control, a study finds.

Deletions in the sleepy lizard genome leave it without an important type of T cells found in most other vertebrates.

A new study has identified a molecular tradeoff between growth and immunity in moths in response to the administration of subtherapeutic doses of antibiotics, a common practice in animal husbandry.

Researchers link the ability of the cells to bind and present DNA from pathogens and cell death to anemia, which is common in COVID-19, and immune activation.

A study looks beyond T and B cell responses to show how the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine elicits a strong innate immune response.

The protein, apolipoprotein L3, destroys invading microbes by acting as a detergent in the cytosol.

A comparison of interferon-related genes across 20 primate genomes reveals differences in the speed at which they evolve and new targets for antiviral discovery efforts.

A recent study sheds light on a previously unknown mechanism for fending off the pathogen, and potentially other viruses as well.

A pathway involved in the adaptive immune system, a relative newcomer in the world of pathogen defense, may have a more ancient role in protecting cells from invading viruses.

Far from being inert fat-storage depots within cells, these lipid-loaded organelles recruit immune proteins and block bacterial growth.

The rare complication known as multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) differs from both Kawasaki disease and severe adult cases of COVID-19, a study finds.

These antiviral proteins are produced by the body as a natural defense against viral infections and synthetic interferons might help prevent or treat the beginning stages of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The viral protein known as ORF3b limits the induction of the type I interferon response, which typically alerts other immune system components to the presence of a virus, in cultured cells.

This previously unknown mechanism for spotting foreign genetic material in the cytoplasm launches antiviral defenses even when the well-known immune mediator STING is absent.

Human natural killer cells, previously considered not to participate in adaptive immunity, remember viral antigens after initial exposures, according to a new study.