Immune-stressing challenges paradigms in immunometabolism and immunology

What is it about?

Shows how infected hosts take advantage of proliferating pathogens’ vulnerability to stress. Pathogens generally must proliferate at infected sites to be pathogenic, while effector immune cells and resident tissue cells don’t need to proliferate at infected sites. Therefore, the pathogens are much more vulnerable to any type of stress. It is argued that an overlooked function of immune cells is to actively make infected sites stressful to preferentially harm the more vulnerable pathogens (including infected host cells). This view forces a rethink of many of the paradigms of immunometabolism, immunology, and pathology.

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Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

Why is it important?

The title says why it’s important! Table 1 lists TWELVE changes to existing paradigms that logically follow from examining the consequences of proliferating pathogens’ vulnerability to stress.

Perspectives