The biology and functional importance of MAIT cells

DI Godfrey; HF Koay; J McCluskey; NA Gherardin

Journal article

The biology and functional importance of MAIT cells

DI Godfrey, HF Koay, J McCluskey, NA Gherardin

Nature Immunology | NATURE PUBLISHING GROUP | Published : 2019

DOI: 10.1038/s41590-019-0444-8

Abstract

In recent years, a population of unconventional T cells called ‘mucosal-associated invariant T cells’ (MAIT cells) has captured the attention of immunologists and clinicians due to their abundance in humans, their involvement in a broad range of infectious and non-infectious diseases and their unusual specificity for microbial riboflavin-derivative antigens presented by the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class I–like protein MR1. MAIT cells use a limited T cell antigen receptor (TCR) repertoire with public antigen specificities that are conserved across species. They can be activated by TCR-dependent and TCR-independent mechanisms and exhibit rapid, innate-like effector responses. He..

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University of Melbourne Researchers

Dale Godfrey Author

Fern Koay Author

McCluskey James Author

Nicholas Gherardin Author

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Grants

Awarded by National Health and Medical Research Council

Funding Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (NHMRC; 1113293 and 1140126); the Australian Research Council (ARC; CE140100011) and the Cancer Council of Victoria (#). DIG is supported by NHMRC Senior Principal Research Fellowship (1117766). H-F.K is supported by an NHMRC ECF Fellowship (1160333).