Exam 3: The Induced Responses of Innate Immunity

Cytokine receptors of the hematopoietin superfamily engage signaling pathways that begin with JAK kinases and lead to activation of STAT-family transcription factors. Each receptor subunit in this superfamily binds a specific JAK kinase (one of four members) and each receptor complex usually activates one major STAT homodimer (one of seven). The specificity for activation of one STAT homodimer by each cytokine is determined by:

Macrophages express multiple types of receptors on their surface that stimulate phagocytosis of microbes, leading to pathogen internalization and destruction. Many of these receptors, such as Dectin-1, rely on direct recognition of a PAMP on the pathogen surface. However, some receptors that stimulate phagocytosis rely on soluble factors (not associated with the phagocyte membrane) to identify and mark the pathogen for uptake by the phagocyte. One such receptor is:

Many different NOD-like receptors, including several with pyrin domains and several with HIN domains, can function to trigger inflammasome assembly leading to the activation of caspase-1. The reason for many different sensors in this innate response system is that:

Each family of NK cell receptors has members that promote NK cell activation, and members that send inhibitory signals when engaged. The difference between activating and inhibitory receptors lies in their association with accessory proteins that promote downstream signaling, or in their ability to recruit and activate inhibitory phosphatases, respectively.

As a family, TLRs can recognize PAMPs associated with a broad array of different pathogens, including bacteria, viruses, and fungi. Patients with a specific susceptibility to herpesvirus infections have a defect in their ability to respond to viral nucleic acids using TLR-3, TLR-7, or TLR-9, even though these proteins are expressed in the patients' cells. Analysis of the TLRs in macrophages and dendritic cells from these patients would likely show which of the arrangements in Figure?

Influenza virus infects and replicates in airway epithelial cells. This virus has a segmented single-stranded RNA genome. Experiments to determine which innate immune sensors were recognizing the virus and inducing production of type I IFNs (IFN- $\alpha$ and IFN- $\beta$ ) were performed. For these studies, mice were infected with Influenza A virus by the intranasal route, which leads to a potent infection in the lungs. Two days post-infection, Type I IFNs were measured in the lung; A shows the results. a) Name two innate sensor categories that are likely involved in recognizing influenza virus. b) A common symptom of virus infections is fever. Which innate receptor sensing pathway is most likely responsible for this response, and how is it induced? Several cell culture lines of epithelial cells, called "Cell Line A, B, or C," are incubated with 10⁴ infectious particles of influenza virus, and viral titers in the culture media are measured 2 days later. Looking at the results of this experiment, it is apparent that the three lines do not all show the same response to the virus. To investigate these differences, mixing experiments are performed, where cells from two different cell lines are mixed together at a 1:1 ratio before the Influenza infection. c) Based on the results shown in Figure , propose an explanation for these data.

Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are effector cells that generally reside in barrier tissues, such as the skin, the gut, and the lung. These cells closely resemble subsets of T lymphocytes, but lack a T cell antigen-receptor. Instead, these cells produce their effector molecules following stimulation by:

Mycobacteria are intracellular pathogens that have adapted to life inside phagocytic cells, such as macrophages. These intracellular bacteria are taken up by phagocytosis, similar to other pathogens, but the bacteria are not killed. One possible mechanism that could account for this immune evasion by mycobacteria is their ability to:

Many of the inflammatory mediators produced by tissue macrophages at sites of infection act on the endothelial cells lining the blood vessel walls. An exception to this is (are) the:

Septic shock is a serious, often fatal response to an infection in the bloodstream. This response can be elicited in mice by intravenous injection of bacterial LPS. However, it was found that one strain of mice, C3H/HeJ, is resistant to LPS-induced shock. This fact was used to clone the gene for TLR-4 based on positional cloning from C3H/HeJ mice. Another example of a strain of mice that is resistant to LPS-induced septic shock is:

RIG-I like receptors (RLRs) such as RIG-I, MDA-5, and STING are cytoplasmic nucleic acid sensors. Give two examples of how such innate sensors distinguish between the RNA/DNA of the host from that of an infecting pathogen.

NOD1 and NOD2 are cytoplasmic sensors of bacterial products such as muramyl dipeptide (MDP), a constituent in the peptidoglycans of most bacteria. These sensors are highly expressed in epithelial cells that line the body surfaces that pathogens must cross to establish an infection. Interestingly, a subset of patients with an inflammatory bowel disease called 'Crohn's disease' have inactivating mutations in NOD2. Why might this deficiency in NOD2 lead to chronic inflammation in the gut?

All mammalian TLRs have been shown to directly bind to microbial products, leading to TLR signaling.

NK cells express receptors from several families, each of which has multiple members. Some of these receptors are activating and others are inhibitory, and NK cell activation is dependent on the balance of signaling overall. The individual NK cells in an individual:

Dendritic cells are tissue resident myeloid cells that are highly phagocytic, like macrophages. However, dendritic cells do not play a major role in large-scale pathogen destruction; instead, they are important in initiating adaptive immune responses of T cells.

Individuals with natural killer (NK) cell deficiencies have susceptibilities to infections with herpesviruses and other DNA viruses, as well as with intracellular bacteria such as the mycobacteria that cause tuberculosis. Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a pathogen that infects macrophages and replicates in their phagocytic vesicles. Which effector function of NK cells is likely most important in promoting immunity to M. tuberculosis?

A key feature of TLR signaling is the ability to induce inflammatory cytokine gene expression extremely rapidly following TLR stimulation. This is accomplished by signaling pathways using several mechanisms to activate transcription factors that are already present in the cell prior to TLR stimulation, but are kept in an inactive state. These signaling pathways use all of the following mechanisms EXCEPT:

When stimulated by binding to bacterial products, the fMet-Leu-Phe (fMLF) receptor triggers multiple responses by phagocytes, including migration and induction of antimicrobial activities. Most of these responses are activated by small GTPases of the Rac and Rho families that are indirectly activated by fMLF receptor stimulation. The fMLF receptor can initiate multiple downstream signaling pathways because:

The extravasation of neutrophils into tissues at sites of infection or inflammation requires changes to both the endothelium and to the neutrophil that are induced by chemokines and cytokines produced in the infected tissue.

In recent years, several new vaccines have been developed that are made from purified viral surface proteins, rather than intact or live viruses. They are referred to as subunit vaccines. In order to generate a protective adaptive immune response to a subunit vaccine, the viral protein(s) must be mixed with an adjuvant. The adjuvant functions to: