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TLR2 activation underlying immune regulation at interfaces

Subject Area Immunology
Term from 2011 to 2015
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 212173602
 
Final Report Year 2017

Final Report Abstract

In this study, we have identified a pathway of immune regulation that operates in the skin. We mimicked intense cutaneous contact to bacteria in different in vivo mouse models by using living bacteria and lipopeptides. We investigated AD as a model for massive cutaneous immune sensing of Gram-positive bacteria in humans. We found that cutaneous infection with Staphylococcus aureus caused immune suppression. The exposure to TLR2-6 ligands was sufficient to cause an almost complete reduction of consecutive cutaneous recall responses. This skin exposure induced accumulation of MDSC, allowing MDSC recruitment to the skin, and suppression of T cellmediated recall responses. Signals through TLR2 on skin-resident cells, but not on recruited hematopoietic cells, as well as cutaneous IL-6 induction, were necessary and sufficient for the expansion of MDSCs and consecutive immune suppression. These data demonstrate that cutaneous recognition of TLR2-6 ligands orchestrates a unique pathway of cutaneous immune modulation mediated by MDSCs, indicating a yet unknown level of immune counter-regulation. In the course of this project it turned out that the number of lipoproteins in pathogenic S. aureus strains is significantly higher than in non-pathogenic species. Many of the 67 lipoproteins in the epidemic strain S. aureus USA300 are involved in nutrient transport by acting as a binding proteins ABC transporters. However, of almost 30 % of the lipoproteins we don’t know what they are doing. One class of lipoproteins represent the so called Lpl lipoproteins. They are encoded as tandem genes on a pathogenicity island and occur only in the S. aureus species. In the course of this project we found out that these Lpl lipoproteins not only contribute to immune stimulation, but they also significantly enhance the host cell invasion. The enhanced invasion in host cells is an elegant way to escape the immune detection (escape mechanism) and to be largely protected from antibiotic therapy. We assume that this one of the mechanisms why USA300 and related strains are so successful in spreading all over the world.

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