Cyclin affects immune response

In your blood, there are immune cells called neutrophils that, when faced with the threat of disease, release their DNA webs to contain pathogens These DNA traps are known as neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs) Some researchers published articles in the development cell, describing how cells release nets and how nets specifically prevent fungal infection   "This is a typical and beneficial cell suicide, and the scene is very heroic: when neutrophils are submerged by invasive organisms, they can no longer eliminate microbial threat by phagocytosis, they will release their DNA nets," said borko amulic, a postdoctoral researcher at the Arturo zychlinsky Laboratory of Max Planck Research Institute   Once neutrophils decide to release nets, they anchor themselves in the tissue and break down their nuclear membranes Researchers are curious about this, because cells usually only break down nuclear membranes during division Therefore, zychlinsky et al speculated that neutrophils may activate the cyclin initiated by cell division when they release nets   To test this, the researchers suppressed cyclin in mouse neutrophils, then exposed the mice to fungal infection, and found that less nets were released and fungal infection could not be completely eliminated They then looked at the fungal infection of the human brain, confirming that human neutrophils also use cyclins in response to exogenous threats Further study showed that cyclin dependent kinase CDK4 / 6 could regulate the formation of net   "The ultimate goal of this study is to guide clinical treatment of too many nets or too few nets," amulic said "We found a new function of CDK4 / 6 in immune response."