The lab of Frances Lund, Ph.D., chair of the UAB Department of Microbiology, is looking at a cell-fate step in B cells after they have proliferated. She wants to understand the switch from rapid cell division to a cell that starts to manufacture antibody molecules. The cytokine interferon-gamma (IFN-gamma) has been implicated in that cell-fate decision, which leads to a fork in the road — most of the B cells make a lot of antibody and then die, but others become long-lived antibody-secreting cells that can produce protective antibodies for decades.
The lab of Allan Zajac, Ph.D., associate professor of microbiology at UAB, is looking at CD8 T cells, which can develop into the classic “killer” T cells that can destroy virus-infected cells. A cell-surface adhesion molecule called ICAM seems to direct the type of T cell produced after cell-to-cell interactions — some of the CD8 T cells become killer T cells, and others become long-lived memory T cells. Zajac believes that ICAM limits the amount of IL-2 experienced by some clustered T cells, and this helps produce memory cells rather than killer cells. Zajac has two versions of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus that differ by only two nucleotides — one causes an acute infection in mice that is quelled in 10 days, while the other, faster-replicating virus gets out of control and exhausts the immune system, and the mice take months to recover.Click here for the rest of the story -- “$10 million UAB grant is probing control of viral infections”