Prof. Dr. Matthias Feige (TUM Department of Chemistry) gave a TUM-IAS Wednesday Coffee Talk on January 20, 2021 entitled “Interleukin Biogenesis: Understanding and Engineering the Language of Immune Cells”.
Watch the coffee talk recording via Panopto here.
Professor Feige and his team have revealed how dedicated cellular control proteins, referred to as chaperones, detect immature immune signalling proteins and prevent them from leaving the cell. The body’s defence system has to react quickly whenever pathogens enter the organism. Intruders are identified by white blood cells, which pass on the information, transmitted via secreted proteins, to other immune cells. Those proteins, the interleukins, dock onto the matching receptors on the recipient cells and for example make the target cells divide and release antibodies. As Interleukin 23 not only plays a central role in the defence against pathogens but is also able to trigger autoimmune diseases, intensive research is currently devoted to it by Professor Feige and his team. In their study, they have demonstrated that molecules retain one part of the interleukin known as IL23-alpha in the cell until it has been incorporated into the complete complex. This way the cell makes sure that it does not secrete any unpaired IL23-alpha and thus controls the biosynthesis of this important interleukin accordingly of the messages it sends.
The results from Professor Feige’s work may serve as the basis for future drugs that use engineered interleukins to modulate the immune system in a desired manner (TUM press release).