Stanford Community Symposium 2018: Sikora - T cells

Is there meant to be an embedded video in your post Hutan?

 

This is what I see.
Click to enlarge thumbnail.

 

Hmm, I can't see the link there either. I would guess it's something to do with my computer settings at the moment.

 

Did you sign into the original livestream, @Andy? I did, and can see the video now.

 

No, I didn't, so that might be it then.

 

Mostly, Michael Sikora recapped last year's finding of T cell clonal expansion in ME/CFS patients. But I liked that he made a real effort to make his talk accessible to a wider audience, and maybe it will be useful to those who want to know more about the role of T cells in the immune system.

Sikora also reported on his new work looking at gene expression in plainly-expanded T cells, checking if they were behaving like typical plainly expanded T cells, primed to kill.

He used single cell gene expression, which is very expensive and time-consuming, but the best way to really understand what's going on. In typically imaginative slides, he explains why it's good idea:


And while this smoothie only has two fruits, the single cell approach works however many different types of cells (fruits) there there.


So the key finding from his new work is that the clonally expanded T cells do indeed look like normal clonally expanded T cells, ready to kill off infected cells. For instance, they make Granzyme B, one of the key molecules they inject into cells to kill them.

The top right of the diagram shows the genes expressed most strongly by cells that have undergone the most clonal expansion:




I know that @Jonathan Edwards has previously suggested that the clonal expansion in ME/CFS could be non-specific, i.e. not triggered by a specific antigen. So I wondered if he thought these results shed any light on that idea?