Expanding the immune system's arsenal to fend off viruses and cancer cells
13 May 2020
Cytotoxic T lymphocytes (CTLs) kill infected and cancerous cells. Mike Dustin's team at the Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, together with Roman Fischer and Benedikt Kessler from the Target Discovery Institute, NDM, detected transfer of cytotoxic multiprotein complexes from CTLs to target cells, termed supramolecular attack particles (SMAPs). SMAPs were rapidly released from CTLs and were autonomously cytotoxic.