Immunity and Inflammation
Principal Investigator: Dr Andrew Cope The group seeks to understand the reciprocal relationship between immunity
and inflammation, with a particular focus on how the inflammatory process in
general, and inflammatory cytokines in particular, regulate the effector
functions of CD4+ T lymphocytes. The experimental approache uses
a combination of basic cellular immunobiology, cell signalling
biochemistry, gene expression profiling and proteomics. References: Cope AP, Londei M, Chu NR, Cohen SBA, Elliott MJ, Brennan FM, Maini RN and
Feldmann M. Chronic exposure to tumor necrosis factor (TNF) in vitro
impairs the activation of T cells through the T cell receptor/ CD3 complex;
reversal in vivo by anti-TNF antibodies in patients with rheumatoid
arthritis. J Clin Invest 1994;94: 749-760. Cope AP, Liblau R, Congia M, Yang X-D, Congia M, Laudanna C, Schreiber RD,
Probert L, Kollias G and McDevitt HO. Chronic TNF exposure alters T
cell responses by attenuating T cell receptor signaling. J Exp Med
1997;185:1573-1584. Isomäki P, Panesar M, Annenkov A, Clark JM, Foxwell BM, Chernajovsky Y, Cope
AP. Prolonged exposure of T cells to TNF down-regulates TCR zeta and
expression of the TCR/CD3 complex at the cell surface. J Immunol
2001;166:5495-507. Kirchgessner H, Dietrich J, Scherer J, Isomäki P, Korinek V, Hilgert I,
Bruyns E, Leo A, Cope AP, Schraven B. The transmembrane adaptor protein TRIM
regulates T cell receptor (TCR) expression and TCR-mediated signaling via an
association with the TCR zeta chain. J Exp Med
2001;193:1269-84.
