WIKIMEDIA, NORROThe development of pro-inflammatory immune cells called T helper, or TH17, cells occurs more readily during the day than at night, according to a study published today (November 7) in Science. But experimental jet lag in mice can cause too many of these cells to develop, leading to an inflammatory disorder in the animals’ guts.
“It’s a very interesting, very ingenious study in the sense that it examines a novel way of controlling the immune system,” said Ivaylo Ivanov, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Columbia University in New York, who was not involved in the work. “We don’t usually think about the role of the circadian cycle in modulating the immune system,” he said. Dan Littman, professor of molecular immunology at New York University, who also did not participate in the study, agreed that circadian regulation is “an area that has . . . been largely unappreciated in terms of immune response.”
Even Lora Hooper, the professor of immunology at the University of Texas Southwestern in Dallas who led the new study, hadn’t planned to investigate circadian control ...
