Special Issues
November 2024
Immunological Barriers and the Allergic March Special Issue
Guest Editor: Masato Kubo
Allergies can be initiated by a wide range of harmless host and environmental substances that are seen as if they were threats to the organism, triggering unnecessary immune responses that cause several common diseases. Excessive IgE production to specific antigens is the definitive feature of allergy but many aspects of innate and adaptive immunity are involved, especially type 2 helper T (Th2) cells. The allergic march describes a sequence of allergic diseases that can begin in infants, often starting with atopic dermatitis (AD) being followed by food allergy and airway diseases such as asthma and allergic rhinitis, where different organs are affected and allergens enter from different sites.
December 2023
Special Issue: Novel Aspects of the Germinal Center Reaction
Guest Editor: Tomohiro Kurosaki
The germinal center (GC) reaction allows adaptive humoral responses to be fine-tuned within follicles, e.g., by enabling B cell proliferation, differentiation, class-switch recombination, and affinity maturation via somatic hypermutation (SHM). The GC reaction is complex because it encompasses interactions between various cell types, in particular follicular dendritic cells and a range of T cell subsets including follicular-helper T cells (Tfh cells); it also affects many aspects of B cell physiology and metabolism in different anatomical locations. The complexity of this environment allows the development of phenotypic diversity and enormous flexibility in generating protective antibody responses and immunological memory, both to infectious organisms and to vaccines. In this Special Issue, we will cover a wide range of novel recent findings about humoral responses, particularly focusing on GC processes.
November 2022
Special issue: Redefining T-Cell Exhaustion
Guest Editors: Yuki Kagoya and Yosuke Togashi
The immune system must be able to respond effectively to infections or tumor cells that can appear, and re-appear, at any time. It must therefore be highly flexible but also be able to quickly produce a variety of efficient effector responses. This is enabled by the presence of a wide and dynamic range of phenotypes and functions among immune cells, especially among lymphocytes, which mediate highly specific and effective short-lived responses and long-term protection. The discovery of the existence and persistence of so-called ‘exhausted’ T cells has challenged some ideas about the efficiency of immune responses because they show impaired responses to T cell receptor (TCR) engagement and have decreased cytokine production and proliferation. Exhausted T cells have unique metabolic pathways and common phenotypic features such as increased expression of inhibitory receptors including PD-1. Exhausted T cells are, nevertheless, heterogeneous and recent characterization of this heterogeneity is offering intriguing novel insights about immune responses and the possibility of therapeutic applications. This Special Issue, which comprises five review articles, provides a varied but comprehensive update of this topic.
September 2022
Special issue: Systemic Organ Interactions in Gastrointestinal Diseases
Guest Editors: Sho Kitamoto and Naoko Ohtani
Communication among organ systems is vital in developing and maintaining human health. Over the past two decades, with advances in sequencing technologies such as 16S rRNA amplicon sequencing and shotgun metagenomic sequencing, it has been uncovered that trillions of microbes (almost as numerous as host cells) reside in every nook and cranny in our bodies. Among them, the gut has the largest microbial community, referred to as the gut microbiota. Recent accumulating evidence has unveiled that the gut microbiota has gone from being the forgotten organ to an essential player in controlling human pathophysiology in the gut (local) and systemic (distant) organs like human cells do. In this Special Issue of five review articles, the authors provide a comprehensive update on the complex interplay between the gut and distant organs with particular focus on the digestive organs, including the liver, pancreas and mouth, as well as the nervous system.
February 2022
Special Issue: Electronic Medicine in Immunology Special Issue Part 2
Guest Editors: Kevin J. Tracey, Sangeeta Chavan and Masaaki Murakami
Electrical stimuli have fascinated us and driven us, first, to understand them and, second, to adapt and harness them. In biology, the role of electricity in transmitting signals to muscles was discovered over 200 years ago. As we have learned about how electrical signals regulate not only normal physiological processes but also the development and the resolution of pathology, it has become clear that their extent and complexity offer enormous opportunities for targeted therapeutic interventions. A few treatments have been approved for use in humans but many more are being tested for a wide variety of disease settings, utilizing different nerves, neural pathways and mediators not only in humans but also in disease models. This is true in particular for electronic manipulation of immune responses and this Special Issue comprehensively updates current approaches to, and progress in, pre-clinical and clinical research into neuroimmune interactions, the roles of neural mediators in disease pathogenesis and specific ways that immune-mediated diseases are being targeted for ongoing and future electronic medicines.
December 2021
Special Issue: The 50th Anniversary of the JSI
In December 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) broke out in Wuhan, China, and quickly spread around the world. With the emergence of the mutated virus, the number of infected people worldwide reached 200 million and the number of deaths reached 4 million in September 2021. Vaccines were administered around the world, but with this virus that creates more than two variants per month, there is no telling when the pandemic will end. COVID-19 has been a warning to anyone who thought that infectious diseases were a thing of the past, reminding us of their terrible power. We now know that: 80% of people infected with the coronavirus are asymptomatic or have only mild symptoms and become spreaders of the infection; that the elderly and people with pre-existing diseases are more likely to become severely ill; that cytokine storms cause rapid deterioration; and that there is a considerable risk of sequelae, including myocarditis. This crisis has reaffirmed the importance of immunology in overcoming infectious diseases.
Under these circumstances, the Japanese Society for Immunology (JSI) is commemorating its 50th anniversary. Here we will look back on the history of the JSI and the contributions it has made to the world since its inception.
October 2021
Special Issue: COVID-19 and Immunity
As a result of restrictions caused by SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2) and COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019), the 49th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Immunology was held online-only on 8 December 2020 and focused on the topic ‘COVID-19 and Immunity’. We published a Meeting Report in April 2021 and now we have compiled a Special Issue of five review articles based on talks at the symposia that were held during the meeting.
June 2021
Special Issue: Electronic Medicine in Immunology Special Issue Part 1
Guest Editors: Kevin J. Tracey, Sangeeta Chavan and Masaaki Murakami
The extent and importance of interactions between the nervous system and immune system become clearer and more fascinating all the time, providing insight into many important mechanisms and new opportunities to intervene. Progress not only in biology but also in engineering and computer sciences is contributing to similar productive multidisciplinary interactions between a range of fields. The ideal end result of this research is to translate it into clinical applications and this is now being achieved at the immuno-neural interface. Bioelectronic medicine, which allows us to undertake artificial neuromodulation, is one example that involves monitoring and modifying electrical signaling in the nervous system for use in diagnosis and therapy and may offer new treatments for a range of diseases, particularly those associated with inflammation, including those affecting the immune system, with advantages such as specific, personalized and localized treatment. We will cover this topic with a Special Issue covering many aspects of electronic medicine as it applies to immunology. Part 1 of this Special Issue includes five review articles.
January 2021
Special Issue: Cancer Immunology and Immunotherapy
Decades of basic research into cancer immunology have paved the way to several new and effective immunotherapeutic strategies. Such research continues and is now illuminated by observations from the clinic. This Special Issue, which includes three review articles and two research articles, describes this ongoing interaction. Kobayashi et al. review near-infared photoimmunotherapy, which causes local immunogenic cell death of cancer cells and releases multiple cancer antigens, triggering a wide range of immune responses. The review by Kumar and Chamoto focuses on the influence of metabolism in normal and cancer cells during immune-checkpoint inhibition, a widely effective form of immunotherapy. In the final review, Cardenas et al. detail a model in which help from various cells within lymphoid-like structures in tumors regulates the CD8 T cell anti-tumor responses. In their research article, Muramatsu et al. use modified cell lines with neoantigens that are induced when tumors are established as a novel strategy to circumvent tumor immune-escape mechanisms. Finally, Yamamoto et al. report novel research findings that CD70+CD11clow dendritic cells are present in nasal lamina propria and express P2X2R; importantly, an intranasal P2XR agonist enhances anti-tumor immunization.
November 2020
Special Issue: Immuno-neural Connections
Guest Editors: Kazuhiro Suzuki and Takashi Shichita
The immune system and the nervous system are complex, but their crucial roles in many aspects of normal physiology and in disease pathogenesis mean that each has been extensively studied and characterized. The rather fixed architecture of the nervous system contrasts to the roaming, flexible nature of the immune system, but both make specific responses to various stimuli and feature, in different ways, a capacity for memory. Notably, studies in the past decade have discovered extensive bi-directional interactions between the two systems that operate in a wide range of responses in health and disease, offering a hope of novel therapeutic approaches for immunological and neurological disorders. This Special Issue, which includes four review articles and one research article, demonstrates several aspects of how the two systems are inter-connected.
September 2020
Special Issue: Memory and Vaccination
Guest Editors: Ken J. Ishii and Tomohiro Kurosaki
Efforts to improve vaccination strategies and to understand how we can provoke the immune system to learn the correct preventive responses have never been more important than now, but we are ever-more aware of the complexities of generating immune memory responses. This Special Issue, which includes five review articles and a ‘Short Communication’ research article, starts with three review articles that update us about progress in understanding how memory responses are generated in CD8+ and CD4+ T cells and their subsets that orchestrate immune memory responses to pathogens and, correspondingly, to vaccines. The fourth review describes novel efforts to provoke appropriate responses to vaccines at appropriate sites and the final review discusses the latest strategies to combat the age-old challenge of influenza vaccines. We finish with a research article delineating antibodies that bind cryptic influenza epitopes on infected cells and protect from otherwise lethal infection, thereby identifying a novel vaccine approach.
July 2020
Special Issue: Immunometabolism
By Heiichiro Udono and Atsushi Kumanogoh
Vast efforts have succeeded in delineating metabolic processes in a huge number of cell types across the entire range of species. Many basic pathways are shared across this range and by all cells within individuals. This has allowed context-dependent and function-defining differences to be investigated and characterized, with the potential for translational research and therapeutic manipulation. This is true for the cells of the immune system through their various stages of differentiation and activation in health and disease. Immunometabolism has also benefitted from many newly available research and analytical methods. As with other aspects of the immune system, responses are the result of a complex interplay of intracellular and extracellular metabolites from different immune-cell types as well as the microbiota, infections and cancer cells. This Special Issue, which comprises six review articles, aims to give an up-to-date synthesis of insights about the immune system that have been provided by the this relatively new but already fascinating field.
October 2019
Special Issue: Autoinflammatory Diseases
By Koji Yasutomo
Autoinflammatory diseases are rare but diverse disorders that usually feature recurrent fever with a range of inflammatory processes, without evidence of infection or autoimmunity. Most are genetically driven and result in dysregulated innate immunity leading to excess production of cytokines. Identification of the genes involved in many of the autoinflammatory syndromes, for example affecting p55 TNFR or components of inflammasomes, has not only allowed delineation of the pathomechanisms of disease but also given insights into the normal workings of these molecules. This Special Issue comprises three review articles and two original-research articles. The first review discusses defective immunoproteasome assembly; the second details TNFR-mediated signaling; and the third describes NLRP3 mosaicism in CAPS. The first research article describes how cholera toxin activates peritoneal macrophages via a novel pathway mediated by NLRP3-containing inflammasomes. Like NLRP3, both NOD1 and NOD2 are NOD-like receptors that sense pathogens and cell damage; the second research paper delineates the role of RICK/RIP2 in NOD1/NOD2-mediated inflammation.
September 2019
Special Issue: Lipids in Inflammation
By Takehiko Yokomizo
Because of the scanty amounts and the short half-lives of lipid-derived mediators in vivo, it has not been easy to quantify them and examine the relationship between these mediators and inflammation. However, recent improvements in mass spectrometry have allowed us to quantify these mediators from tissue samples, and also to elucidate the structures of unidentified lipids such as specialized pro-resolving mediators, which opened new research fields in lipid mediators in relation to inflammation. This Special Issue, which includes seven review articles, covers the wide range of pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory roles played by lipid mediators in many forms of acute and chronic inflammation such as intestinal diseases, allergy, stress/depression and skin diseases; it focuses, for example, on emerging roles for omega-3 and/or omega-6 fatty acids, and the vast array of bioactive lipid metabolites including PGE2, also emphasizing the importance of receptors for prostaglandins, leukotrienes and sphingosine 1-phosphate.
July 2019
Special Issue: Basic and Translational Skin Immunology
By Keisuke Nagao
Research over the recent years has highlighted the skin not only as a physical barrier but also as an active immunological interface with tissue-specific characteristics. The intricate machineries that are involved have only begun to be elucidated, and how aberrant interactions between epithelial and immune cells drive pathology is an exciting field of research that is being pursued for various skin diseases. We have covered a variety of topics from basic to translational immunology in the seven review articles in this Special Issue: crosstalk between the skin epithelium and immune cells; antigen presentation in the skin; the three major forms of pemphigus; two representative forms of immune-mediated alopecia (alopecia areata and primary cicatricial alopecia); recent progress in atopic dermatitis; Treg functions in controlling skin inflammation and tissue repair; and the lessons we are learning from the use of antibodies that target immune checkpoint inhibitors, especially anti-PD-1.
November 2018
Special Issue: Macrophages
By Toshiaki Ohteki and Yasutaka Okabe
Phagocytosis, a representative function of macrophages, has been examined since the late 19th century and such studies were the basis of characterizing innate immunity. Macrophages also make a range of cytokines important in both innate and adaptive immunity. This involvement in so many responses in virtually all tissues requires them to be enormously flexible but their phenotypic and functional heterogeneity have made it difficult to delineate the origins of macrophages in specific sites under different circumstances.. Recently, their non-immunological homeostatic roles in organ development, angiogenesis, tissue repair/regeneration and metabolism have also become clear. This therefore formed a major part of a Symposium (“Dendritic Cells and Macrophages”) at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Immunology in Sendai, Japan; that Symposium forms the basis for this Special Issue, which comprises five review articles.
September 2018
Special Issue: Allergy
By Hiroshi Nakajima and Susumu Nakae
Allergy involves abnormal variations of normally protective immune responses that, in predisposed subjects, trigger immediate hypersensitivity to normally harmless antigens. Although allergic responses are abnormal, they are very common and affect a considerable, and increasing, proportion of the population. There is thus a clear drive for understanding the complex mechanisms involved in allergy. Much progress has been made in understanding and treating allergy, in conjunction with increased knowledge of the workings, and manipulation, of the general immune system in health and disease. Allergy was therefore the topic of a Symposium at the 2017 Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Immunology in Sendai, Japan; that Symposium forms the basis for this Special Issue, which includes five review articles and one research article.
May 2018
Special Issue: Autoinflammatory Syndromes
By Scott W. Canna and Raphaela Goldbach-Mansky
Since the discovery of the genetic causes of the first autoinflammatory diseases—FMF and TRAPS—further genetic and clinical discoveries have advanced hand in hand with basic discoveries of innate-immune sensors and pathways that link danger-sensing to the production and release of key proinflammatory cytokines. The findings of mutations in genes for two intracellular sensors—MEFV and NLRP3—that cause the IL-1-mediated diseases FMF and the CAPS, respectively, coupled with groundbreaking insights into the biology of IL-1 activation, led to the successful use of treatments that target IL-1. More recently, intracellular pathways the lead to production of type I interferons and their respective mechanisms unraveled a group of diseases with dysregulated innate immunity, termed interferonopathies, that include the autoinflammatory diseases mediated by type I interferons. This Special Issue integrates emerging areas of disparate autoinflammatory conditions, focusing on recent findings that link hyperferritinemic and granulomatous inflammation, to suggest novel cytokine-targeting treatments.
March 2018
Special Issue: Interactions Between the Immune System and Parasites
By Cevayir Coban and Masahiro Yamamoto
A recent WHO report suggests that about 1.5 billion humans are infected with worms and that 250 million are infected with protozoan parasites in total causing about 1 million deaths per year. The four review articles in this Special Issue highlight how the immune system recognizes, interacts with and responds to some parasites. Although most of the time it defeats the parasites, this may sometimes result in chronic infections and chronic health outcomes. Koubun Yasuda and Kenji Nakanishi summarize how the host induces Th2-type immune responses to expel nematodes. Matteo Rossi and Nicolas Fasel summarize innate as well as adaptive immune responses to Leishmania parasites. Miwa Sasai, Ariel Pradipta and Masahiro Yamamoto discuss how Toxoplasma parasites are recognized by the innate immune system, which can activate the adaptive immune system. Finally, Michelle Sue Jann Lee and Cevayir Coban discuss the chronic complications of Plasmodium parasites caused by the long-term modulation of the host immune cells.
November 2017
Special Issue: Antibody-Mediated Therapy Part 2
By Akira Nakamura, Kouhei Tsumoto, and Toshiyuki Takai
Our two-part Special Issue has focused on specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) that are now being used to treat an ever-widening range of diseases. We have also emphasized studies into the mechanisms of action of antibody molecules, especially in clinical situations, and the potential implications for development of improved and novel mAbs for future applications. Antibodies have been used therapeutically for well over a century but the breadth and depth of their applications are increasing so rapidly and successfully that clinical studies are informing mechanistic questions while basic research continues to interrogate how antibodies are made and function, so their properties can be further refined. The second part of this Special Issue includes four review articles further exploring this topic. This issue also includes an original research article that builds on observations from patients with hyper-IgM syndrome to further define the mechanism for antibody class-switch recombination.
July 2017
Special Issue: Antibody-Mediated Therapy
By Kouhei Tsumoto, Akira Nakamura and Toshiyuki Takai
The ready availability of serum and the relatively high concentrations of antibodies there have meant that novel and refined antibody-based therapies have paralleled breakthroughs in basic research investigating the structure of antibodies, the genetic and molecular mechanisms involved in their production and their many effector functions. As our knowledge of complexity of the immune system and its role in health and disease has grown, the central role of antibodies has remained unchallenged; and the extraordinary properties resulting from the combination of constant and variable features, allowing both predictability and manipulation, have allowed us to exploit antibody molecules to serve as reagents and as drugs. In this Special Issue of review articles, we describe how specific monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) are being used to treat a wide range of diseases. We also emphasize studies into the mechanisms of action of antibody molecules, especially in clinical situations, and the potential implications for development of improved and novel mAbs for future applications.
April 2017
Special Issue: Dynamics of RNA Regulation in the Immune System
By Shizuo Akira and Kazuhiko Maeda
The publication of the human genome was the culmination of decades of advance in research and co-operation and has, as hoped, provided not only a foundation but also a springboard for further study. One of the consequences has been an increasing appreciation of the many roles of the various forms of RNA in the function of all cell types at different times. Diverse roles for RNA in control of catalysis, gene expression, signaling and communication have been established and are continuously being defined and expanded. As expected, this is true within the immune system, where tried and tested protective mechanisms that have proved effective in evolution must be continuously supplemented by flexible and innovative responses to new challenges. This Special Issue contains five review articles that update us on many of the new discoveries and highlight areas where progress will continue.
January 2017
Special Issue: Stem Cell Therapy
By Ko Okumura
Although there is some confusion about the definition and use of the term ‘mesenchymal stem cells’ (MSCs), there is no doubt about their potential to repair and regenerate a range of different tissues. This Special Issue comprises two articles that review the therapeutic use of MSCs. The first article describes how MSCs can readily be obtained from adipose tissue. Injection of these MSCs, in conjunction with established adjuvant systems, can restore anti-bacterial and anti-viral immune responses to those seen in younger organisms. The second article concentrates on extracellular vesicles (EVs) secreted from MSCs. MSC-EVs have advantages over the whole cells from which they are derived but confer similar therapeutic effects. EVs have stable membranes and can traffic in biological fluids as well as crossing the blood–brain–barrier, thereby transferring enzymes and genetic material that can for example target Aβ, a protein that is overproduced in Alzheimer’s disease.
August 2016
Special Issue: Cancer Immunology—Immunopathology
By Yutaka Kawakami
The immune system developed to respond against foreign materials invading the body and has a basic characteristic of not attacking self-cells. Unfortunately, potentially tumorigenic self-derived cells arise all the time and there has been much research on the pathological features of cancer tissues and the characteristics of the immune responses that are triggered or can be induced to prevent or eliminate tumors. Recent research has demonstrated the role of T cells, NK cells and other innate immune cells, as well as immune-evasion mechanisms used by tumor cells. The immune status in cancer appears to be defined by cancer cell characteristics, host immune-reactivity and environmental factors. Therefore, further understanding of human cancer immunopathology, particularly mechanisms of individual differences of immune-status, is important to improve current cancer immunotherapies possibly through the identification of biomarkers for personalized therapy. This is the second part of our Special Issue and comprises five review articles about the immunopathology of cancers.
July 2016
Special Issue: Cancer Immunology—Immunotherapy
By Yutaka Kawakami
The ultimate aim of cancer research is to provide a platform that enables novel therapeutic intervention in cancer and one amazing aspect of the immune system is that we can not only observe it but also manipulate it, utilizing its mechanisms of action for vaccines and in therapeutic antibodies and lymphocytes. And after so many years of intensive research, very recently immunotherapy has begun to provide breakthrough treatments in oncology; this is especially the case, as mentioned in many of the articles in this Special Issue, with antibody-mediated immune-checkpoint inhibition and with engineered T cells. Arguably, cancer immunology has gone from bedside to bench and has returned, armed with better knowledge and effective therapeutics, to offer new hope against the diseases that affect so many of us. This is the first part of our Special Issue and comprises six review articles about the immunotherapy of cancers.
April 2016
Introduction: Autoimmunity Special Issue
By Kazuhiko Yamamoto
There are about 80 recognized autoimmune diseases, which affect roughly 5% of the population. Despite extensive and very long-established knowledge of the features and pathogenesis of these diseases, they have in general proved difficult to ameliorate. Key features of autoimmune diseases are the wide variety of organs/systems targeted, the complexity of immune system components involved (innate, humoral and cellular) and the interplay of complex genetic and environmental elements. Thus, as is common with ‘experiments of nature’, they offer insights but shroud them in complexity. In this Special Issue, our first three Review articles discuss basic aspects of the immune response in autoimmunity, whereas the next two Reviews discuss therapeutic approaches that can target the disease. Finally, we include a research article that uses a model of autoimmunity to explore one potentially important mechanism whereby autoimmunity is just part of a complex interaction between the immune system and general metabolism.
January 2016
Introduction: Innate Lymphoid Cells Special Issue
By Shigeo Koyasu
Recent progress in characterizing innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) has been remarkably fast; pioneering studies of relatively rare cells with novel properties isolated from different sites have been drawn together quickly and, despite the complexity of the picture, patterns have emerged in the context of known features of adaptive immunity. In this Special Issue of review articles, our authors provide a comprehensive update on the phenotype, functions and inter-relationships of ILC subsets.
October 2015
Introduction: Regulatory B Cell Special Issue—making all the pieces fit
By Thomas F. Tedder
Specific and functionally important B-cell subsets with negative regulatory properties have been recently identified that contribute to immunological tolerance by down-modulating immune responses under homeostatic, as well as inflammatory and pathogenic, conditions. This Special Issue focuses both on regulatory B-cell subsets that suppress symptoms in a wide range of human diseases and experimental models, and on other B-cell subsets that augment acute and chronic inflammation.
January 2015
Introduction: Antibody-Targeted Therapy Special Issue
By Tadamitsu Kishimoto
Lymphocytes are the crucial orchestrators of the adaptive immune system because the enormous flexibility of antibody or TCR gene expression and modification in B or T lymphocyte populations allows adaptive selection of individual lymphocytes that express antibodies or TCRs that can recognize and tag almost any candidate molecule and potentially trigger a range of effector functions. In this Special Issue of review articles, our authors detail many of the current and future uses of antibodies in human diseases.
