The discovery reveals how T cells defend organs, opening the door for future therapies to help the body fight tumors, infections and more.

Scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology have discovered a cellular driver for tissue resident memory T cell development, providing a peek into how to boost T cell production to fight disease.

Tissue resident memory T cells are specialized immune cells that act as the body’s first responders to disease, battling viruses by defending specific organs.

Pandurangan Vijayanand, MD, PhD/La Jolla Institute of Immunology

The LJI team, led by Pandurangan Vijayanand, MD, PhD, William K. Bowes Distinguished Professor, found a new molecule that is likely to play an important role in the particular T cells’ development and function.

The findings, published recently in Science Immunology, detail how these T cells might be harnessed to improve human health, using the newly-discovered membrane receptor molecule (GPR25) to promote a process called differentiation, during which a regular memory T cell transforms into the resident memory T cell.

Han Feng, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Vijayanand Lab and co-first author of the new study, confirmed the importance of GPR25 by finding that mice with GPR25 deficiency cannot maintain a functional population of the specialized T cells.

The study suggests that future therapeutics might target GPR25 to help the body fight disease, as receptor molecules are exceptionally “druggable,” Feng said in a press release.

Targeting GPR25 to enhance resident memory T cells in infectious diseases and cancers could help treat autoimmune diseases where the T cells contribute to harmful inflammation.

“We think GPR25 is an interesting molecule full of translation potentials that worth investigating,” Feng said.