Mast cell-orchestrated immunity to pathogens

By S. Abraham, A. S. St. John. Nature reviews. Immunology, 2010

939 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Although mast cells were discovered more than a century ago, their functions beyond their role in allergic responses remained elusive until recently. However, there is a growing appreciation that an important physiological function of these cells is the recognition of pathogens and modulation of appropriate immune responses. Because of their ability to instantly release several pro-inflammatory mediators from intracellular stores and their location at the host–environment interface, mast cells have been shown to be crucial for optimal immune responses during infection. Mast cells seem to exert these effects by altering the inflammatory environment after detection of a pathogen and by mobilizing various immune cells to the site of infection and to draining lymph nodes. Interestingly, the character and timing of these responses can vary depending on the type of pathogen stimulus, location of pathogen recognition and sensitization state of the responding mast cells. Recent studies using mast cell activators as effective vaccine adjuvants show the potential of harnessing these cells to confer protective immunity against microbial pathogens.

Subfields: Immunology, Immunology and Allergy

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c82eab330a5c8f261055344ee5cc742e1ff84ab7

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Citations in the corpus

• Cellular and Molecular Players in Adipose Tissue Inflammation in the Development of Obesity-induced Insulin Resistance (2013, neutral): “Mast cells are also myeloid lineage cells and are abundant in the barriers that are exposed to the environment, such as skin and the mucosa [77,78].”
• Metabolic Regulation of Immune Responses (2014, background): “Mast cells are tissue resident cells that play important functions in wound healing, and defense against pathogens, venoms, and toxins (35).”
• Innate immunity in the central nervous system. (2012, neutral): “Given that mast cells direct immune cell traffic to peripheral sites of infection (159), it is tempting to speculate that meningeal mast cells may also promote cellular cross-talk between T cells and myeloid cells in EAE.”