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Immunology

Commit ye helpers

Nature volume 404, pages 719–720 (2000)Cite this article

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Different types of immune cell defend the body against different pathogens. For example, immune cells known as type 1 helper T cells (TH1 cells) are important for protection against intracellular pathogens such as bacteria, and are also implicated in organ-specific autoimmune diseases1,2,3,4,5. TH2 cells, by contrast, are needed to eradicate flatworms, roundworms and other extracellular parasites, and are also involved in allergic reactions1,2,3,4. Part of what makes TH1 and TH2 cells different is that they express different types of secreted proteins known as cytokines1,2,3,4,5, and, conversely, different cytokines also have a say in whether a specific progenitor cell becomes a TH1 or a TH2 cell3,4. But other mechanisms are also likely to be involved in the commitment of a progenitor cell to a particular differentiation pathway4,5,6.

Now, Szabo and colleagues7, writing in Cell, identify such a mechanism. They report the isolation of T-bet, a new TH1-specific factor that, remarkably, not only controls the expression of interferon-γ — the hallmark TH1 cytokine — but also represses T H2- specific cytokines.

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Figure 1: Driving T-helper-cell commitment.

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  1. the DNAX Research Institute (a Schering Plough Institute), Palo Alto, 94304-1104, California, USA

    Anne O'Garra

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  1. Anne O'Garra
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Correspondence to Anne O'Garra.

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O'Garra, A. Commit ye helpers. Nature 404, 719–720 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35008191

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