Chemical coordinates
UNIVERSITY OF ROCHESTER, KIHONG LIMNeutrophils that storm the influenza-infected mouse throat leave a trail of chemicals that lead T cells to the site, researchers from the University of Rochester in New York showed this week (September 3) in Science.
“The paper goes very far, using an infection model to not only describe a phenomenon, but to clarify the molecular cascade of events in impressive detail,” said Michael Sixt of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in Klosterneuburg who penned an accompanying commentary but was not involved in the work.
“This study suggests that T cells also don’t really know where to go without the help of key innate immune system cells like neutrophils,” said immunologist and evolutionary ecologist Andrea Graham of Princeton University who also did not participate in the research.
Nitrogen-fixing boost
NASAOver the long term, elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) levels...
“It’s an elegant study because they’re really using a timeline that’s appropriate to the question and I think that nuance of this paper sets it apart from many other papers,” said Ruth Gates, a marine biologist at the University of Hawaii who was not involved in the study.
Microbial ecologist Elena Litchman of Michigan State University noted that increased CO2 levels is but one factor associated with climate change. In the present study, the researchers “subjected the species to just one stressor, and the future ocean isn’t just going to be one stressor,” Litchman, who was not involved in the work, told The Scientist. “Future evolutionary studies would have to include two stressors acting together in different directions.”
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