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The research group of Christian Krebs landed a milestone publication in Science Immunology titled "Pathogen-induced tissue-resident memory TH17 (TRM17) cells amplify autoimmune kidney disease."

The research group of Christian Krebs is part of the CRC 1192 (project A5). 

Translated snippets from the official press release (German):

"We were able to prove in the laboratory that infections change the immune memory in the kidneys in the long term and that this leads to increased tissue destruction in the case of so-called glomerulonephritis," says Priv.-Doz. Dr. Christian Krebs, first author of the study and senior physician in III. Medical Clinic and Polyclinic of the UKE.

“Our study provides an important insight into the role of memory T cells in the development of autoimmune diseases. So far it was unclear what role they played in autoimmunity. All that was known was that T memory cells are formed during the immune response against pathogens and provide important protection against re-infections, ”says Dr. Daniel Reimers co-author of the study from the Institute for Immunology at the UKE.

Specifically, the researchers used high-resolution sequencing analyzes to characterize the composition of the T cell populations in kidney tissue biopsies and were able to detect various types of memory T cells, including tissue resident CD4 + T memory cells (tissue resident memory T cells or Trm cells). Significantly more of these Trm cells were found in kidney biopsies from patients with ANCA-associated glomerulonephritis (ANCA-GN).

"The discovery of these disease mechanisms was made possible by the close cooperation between various projects within the Collaborative Research Center SFB1192," says Prof. Dr. Ulf Panzer, co-author of the study and head of the Translational Immunology Section of the III. Medical clinic and polyclinic, which together with the director of the III. Medical Clinic and Polyclinic, Prof. Dr. Tobias Huber, heads the Collaborative Research Center SFB1192 at the UKE.

Pathogen-induced tissue-resident memory TH17 (TRM17) cells amplify autoimmune kidney disease.
Krebs CF, Reimers D, Zhao Y, Paust HJ, Bartsch P, Nuñez S, Rosemblatt MV, Hellmig M, Kilian C, Borchers A, Enk LUB, Zinke M, Becker M, Schmid J, Klinge S, Wong MN, Puelles VG, Schmidt C, Bertram T, Stumpf N, Hoxha E, Meyer-Schwesinger C, Lindenmeyer MT, Cohen CD, Rink M, Kurts C, Franzenburg S, Koch-Nolte F, Turner JE, Riedel JH, Huber S, Gagliani N, Huber TB, Wiech T, Rohde H, Bono MR, Bonn S, Panzer U, Mittrücker HW.
Sci Immunol. 2020 Aug