Department of Medical Parasitology and Infection Biology, Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute, University of Basel, Basel, Switzerland.
Ifakara Health Institute, Bagamoyo Clinical Trial Unit, Bagamoyo, Tanzania.
Semin Immunopathol. 2020 Jun;42(3):265-277. doi: 10.1007/s00281-020-00791-3. Epub 2020 Feb 19.
Malaria is an old scourge of humankind and has a large negative impact on the economic development of affected communities. Recent success in malaria control and reduction of mortality seems to have stalled emphasizing that our current intervention tools need to be complemented by malaria vaccines. Different populations of unconventional T cells such as mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) cells, invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells and γδ T cells are gaining attention in the field of malaria immunology. Significant advances in our basic understanding of unconventional T cell biology in rodent malaria models have been made, however, their roles in humans during malaria are less clear. Unconventional T cells are abundant in skin, gut and liver tissues, and long-lasting expansions and functional alterations were observed upon malaria infection in malaria naïve and malaria pre-exposed volunteers. Here, we review the current understanding of involvement of unconventional T cells in anti-Plasmodium falciparum immunity and highlight potential future research avenues.
疟疾是人类的一种古老瘟疫，对受影响社区的经济发展有很大的负面影响。最近在疟疾控制和降低死亡率方面取得的成功似乎已经停滞不前，这强调了我们目前的干预手段需要通过疟疾疫苗来补充。在疟疾免疫学领域，非常规 T 细胞（如黏膜相关不变 T（MAIT）细胞、不变自然杀伤 T（iNKT）细胞和γδ T 细胞）的不同群体受到了关注。在啮齿动物疟疾模型中，我们对非常规 T 细胞生物学的基本理解取得了重大进展，然而，它们在人类疟疾中的作用尚不清楚。非常规 T 细胞在皮肤、肠道和肝脏组织中大量存在，在无疟疾和疟疾预先暴露的志愿者中，观察到它们在疟疾感染后会出现长期的扩增和功能改变。在这里，我们回顾了非常规 T 细胞在抗疟原虫免疫中的作用的现有认识，并强调了潜在的未来研究方向。
