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Session 7: Innate and adaptive immune responses to microbes at mucosal surfaces

Upon pathogen challenge and/or tissue injury, host immune system mounts a rapid defense response including the production/release of a group of structurally diverse multifunctional antimicrobial proteins (AMPs). Aside from acting as direct antimicrobial effectors, certain AMPs, such as defensins, cathelicidin, eosinophil-derived neurotoxin (EDN), high-mobility group box 1 protein and certain chemokines, also have the dual capability of recruiting and activating antigen-presenting dendritic cells (DCs). Based on the critical role of DCs in initiating antigen-specific immune response, these AMPs serve as early endogenous signals to alarm the adaptive immune systems and therefore are classified as ‘alarmins’. Co-administration of an alarmin with antigens enhances antigen-specific immune responses in vivo. Recent experiments aimed at investigating the immune enhancing role of the alarmin EDN revealed that EDN selectively enhanced a Th2predominant antigen-specific immune response through triggering the TLR2/MyD88 signaling pathway in DCs, highlighting the potential role of alarmins in regulating the type (Th1 versus Th2) of immune responses.