Research conducted by Poles is a modest part of world immunology. However, at the 15th International Immunological Congress in Milan, several Polish teams presented significant results on diseases caused by the herpes virus HSV-2, research on the formation of a neutrophil network (NET) that eliminates bacteria and viruses, and regulatory lymphocytes, determining the body’s response to the threat of disease.
Immunological research requires several things – many years of programs, good quality equipment and, above all, experienced researchers who know what they would like to receive and how it can be achieved – nowhere are the words of the 1996 Nobel Prize winner, Swiss immunologist prof. Rolf M. Zinkernagl were not as up-to-date as in Milan. There is no need to hide that in the world immunology centers from the USA, Great Britain are in the lead. Britain, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Japan, France, Italy, Canada, Israel and Australia. Interesting works are presented by universities and research institutions in Spain and Portugal, hit by the crisis, and new centers in South Korea, India and China are also growing. It is worth noting here that Chinese, Indian and … Polish surnames are found in many research teams carrying out large-scale research programs, bearing fruit in publications that often change the world’s immunology. However, unlike Chinese scientists, Polish and Indian members of these teams are immigrants who have already grown into new scientific circles and have no intention of returning to the Old Country.
Compared to the USA and the EU, the contribution of Central Europe to the world of immunological research is not very significant. Research on the rapid development of lymphocytes protecting against infections in bone marrow cells was presented by researchers from the Central Tuberculosis Research Institute in Moscow. Similarly important was the work on reprogramming the human immune system carried out by specialists from the Moscow Medical and Dental University. It can be said, however, that Polish research centers, although smaller and with much more modest funds than state centers, performed at the International Immunological Congress in Milan no worse than they did. Several Polish teams presented the results of research relevant to immunology in working sessions.
Such was the presentation of a team of scientists from the Military Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology led by Dr. Małgorzata Krzyżowska. The team looked at genital herpes, a dangerous sexually transmitted viral disease. The herpes virus, known as HSV-2, passes through the mucous membranes, inhabits the sacral ganglia, and relapses. It occurs in 10-60 percent. population; in developing countries, even among 80 percent.
The presence of HSV-2 in the body is an absolute medical indication for cesarean section in childbirth. Infection of a child with HSV-2 during childbirth can lead to meningitis and changes in the central nervous system. HSV-2, which has so far been the most common in developing countries, scientists noted at the Congress, is returning in a big way to Europe, especially to Central and Eastern Europe. Researchers and medical services from Ukraine have reported a huge increase in the incidence during the last decade, including with the increase in HIV infections.
Dr. Krzyżowska’s team focused on the issue of how HSV-2 infection affects the cells of the very site of infection – in the genitals. Scientists speculated that the key proteins Fas and FasL are present on the surface of inflammatory cells in the genital epithelium. They build a cell pathway that is responsible for cell death, removal of unnecessary cells and their self-destruction. The researchers used knockout mice lacking Fas and FasL and normal C57BL laboratory mice. All groups infected with HSV-2 and examined the inflammation and level of tissue infection with the virus. Contrary to previous claims, proteins that are responsible only for cell death have been found to play an important role in the body’s defense during HSV-2 infection, helping to reduce the damage to tissue by the virus and helping the immune system to fight it.
This discovery is all the more important that in the case of HSV-2, the so-called co-infections – in the course of infection with the virus, the genital tissue is so damaged that the natural barrier against other infections disappears. Hence, in the case of HSV-2 infection by a woman, the possibility of HIV infection increases several dozen times. It is also easier to catch other sexually transmitted diseases, such as syphilis.
In turn, a team of scientists from the Jagiellonian University, led by prof. Joanna Cichy presented research on the creation of extracellular neutrophilic networks, the so-called NET. Neutrophils do not have a great ability to absorb harmful bacteria and pathogens. However, they create special networks in organs and bloodstream, composed of their own DNA, which they throw out when they encounter a pathogen, histones, i.e. proteins on which the DNA is wound, and granular proteins that act as nodes in this network. The network prepared in this way immobilizes and destroys pathogens. The process of its creation so far has been quite difficult to study; scientists of the Jagiellonian University have proved that leukocyte protease inhibitors (SLPI), secreted, among others, by by bronchial epithelial cells. Protease inhibitors are very specific substances that inhibit the activity of proteolytic enzymes, i.e. enzymes that break down proteins. Scientists have found that it is SLPI that controls the formation of extracellular neutrophilic networks.
Two other Polish research teams from the Jagiellonian University and the Wrocław Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy in cooperation with the American Georgia Regents University and Yale University focused on the problem of T lymphocyte development and their role in resistance to infection. In the first case, an international group of scientists investigated the mechanism of action of Treg regulatory lymphocytes. These are very specific lymphocytes that inhibit too intense, unnecessary reaction of the immune system to the threat.
Researchers from Yale University and the Jagiellonian University, using transgenic mice, found that regulatory lymphocytes suppress an excessively strong reaction through a small particle of miR150 ribonucleic acid. In turn, scientists from the Institute of Immunology and Experimental Therapy and Georgia Regents University dealt with the problem of the development of T lymphocytes and the formation of CD4 + FoxP3 + and CD4 + FoxP3- T lymphocytes, responsible for the recognition of cellular antigens, i.e. determining whether a given particle is a harmful pathogen or is neutral or part of tissue. As scientists have proved, the formation of these cells is not associated with any special protein reaction, as has been previously believed. This research has a fundamental role – it is related to the recognition of processes that exist in the human body. Only getting to know them will make it possible to develop therapies and medications for his ailments and disabilities.
These presentations were not the only ones in Poland at the 15th International Congress of Immunology in Milan. During the poster session, where research works are presented on posters explaining the effects of individual programs and experiments, a dozen or so teams from the University of Wrocław, the Jagiellonian University, the Medical University of Łódź, the Medical University of Wrocław, the Łódź Institute of Medical Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the University of Warsaw, and the Medical University of Warsaw presented themselves. . However, it is worth paying attention to the competition – the huge poster session gathered most of the 4 people. 10% of research reports sent to the organizers of the Congress, for the working session and for the symposia session, were qualified. from research and programs considered the most interesting.
Tekst: Marek Mejssner