Publications by authors named "Ashley Westerback"
Article Synopsis
- Effector CD8(+) T cells are crucial for fighting viral infections and monitoring tumors, but their survival and function can be influenced by factors like stress and inflammation.
- Researchers created a special mouse model to explore the role of autophagy in T cell responses during viral infections, specifically using influenza as a case study.
- Their findings revealed that a lack of autophagy (due to Atg5 deletion) led to reduced T cell effectiveness, increased cell death, and failure to develop long-term immunity after secondary infections, highlighting the importance of autophagy in T cell survival and function.
Tumors and the immune system are intertwined in a competition where tilting the fine balance between tumor-specific immunity and tolerance can ultimately decide the fate of the host. Defensive and suppressive immunological responses to cancer are exquisitely sensitive to metabolic features of rapidly growing tumors, such as hypoxia, low nutrient availability, and aberrant growth factor signaling. As a result, clinical therapies impacting these properties change the in situ antitumor immune response by virtue of disrupting the tumor environment.
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- The study aimed to compare the functional abilities of low prevalence HPV 16 E6 variants with high prevalence types, focusing on their roles in cancer development.
- Both low and high prevalence E6 variants showed similar effects on growth arrest and p53 elevation, but differences were noted in their ability to influence cell stratification, differentiation, and apoptosis.
- R8Q displayed a distinct phenotype with lower keratin 10 expression and heightened TCF/β-catenin transcription, indicating that the prevalence of E6 variants might not be closely linked to their carcinogenic potential.