News
Dendritic cells act as the guardians of our immune system. They are lurking for foreign invaders, swallow them, break them into pieces and present the fragments on the cell surface. When the dendritic cells and their pathogen fragments come into contact with specialised white blood cells, called T cells, these T cells are activated and they can destroy the infected cells. Researchers from TWINCORE, a joint facility of the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and the Hannover Medical School (MHH), have now discovered how the uptake of antigens and presentation of antigen fragments on human dendritic cells are regulated in terms of time and space. These findings form the foundation for the development of improved vaccines. The study has just been published in the journal Blood Advances.