Our understanding of T cell responses in COVID-19 and vaccination is incomplete. Gao et al. examine SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell responses to infection and vaccination, revealing disparate kinetics between CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Furthermore, compared to vaccination alone, circulating CD8+ T cells are attenuated during infection and in subsequent vaccination.

The stratified squamous epithelium (SSE) forms the epidermis of skin (e.g., trunk skin, foreskin, and labia) and the epithelium of type II mucosal tissues (e.g., vagina, ectocervix, and anal canal). Langerhans cells (LCs) were long thought to be the sole mononuclear phagocyte (MNP) residing in these tissues. However, two decades ago, other MNP populations appearing as dendritic cells (DCs) were…

Tumor mutation burden (TMB) is a proven, but imperfect, immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) response-predictor. Recently in Nature Medicine, Niknafs et al. demonstrate that persistent mutation burden, a subset of TMB, is an improved metric to predict patient ICB therapy outcome.

In their letter to Immunity,1 Bertram et al. argue that a subset of Langerhans cells (LCs), LC2, which we recently defined,2 shares the same surface markers with epidermal CD11c+ dendritic cells (DCs) and is actually classical DC2 (cDC2). The authors summarized the previously reported markers of epidermal CD11c+ DC subsets and found that they were highly consistent with those of LC2.2…

Activation of the cGAS-STING pathway by cytoplasmic DNA involves cGAMP-induced STING translocation from the ER to the Golgi. Fang et al. show that Armadillo-like helical domain-containing protein 3 (ARMH3) interacts with STING at the Golgi and recruits PI4KB to synthesize PI4P, which directs STING Golgi-to-endosome trafficking and constructs the lipid environment required for STING activation via…

Our understanding of CD4+ T cell biology currently suffers from a divergence between helper subset differentiation and memory formation. In this perspective, Jenkins and colleagues propose an integrative model broadly incorporating the concepts of Th1/Th2 differentiation, central and effector memory formation, and cellular and humoral immunity.