Prajwal Gurung |
|||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||
| Research Interests | |
|
My thesis project looks at the role of dead cells in regulating immune responses within our body. Cell death can occur primarily by two main processes, apoptosis and necrosis. Apoptosis is also known as programmed cell death and does not induce any immune response, whereas necrosis is an accidental cell death due to trauma or injury and is highly inflammatory.
Naïve apoptotic cells do not mature dendritic cells, whereas pre-activated apoptotic cells do. Thus my first project is to elucidate the mechanisms that result in these two different outcomes. Peripheral tolerance is a mechanism by which self-reactive T cells that escape thymic deletion are kept in check. Several studies have shown that peptide-induce deletion of Tg-CD4+ T cells induce tolerance in the mice to that same antigen/peptide. My second project is to understand the mechanisms that are involved in this induction of tolerance. |
|
| Publications | |
|
Gurung P, Young BM, Coleman RA, Wiechert S, Turner LE, Ray NB, Waldschmidt TJ, Legge KL, Cook RT. Chronic ethanol induces inhibition of antigen-specific CD8+ but not CD4+ immunodominant T cell responses following Listeria monocytogenes inoculation. J Leukoc Biol. 2009 Jan;85(1):34-43. Epub 2008 Sep 26. PubMed PMID: 18820175; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC2626766.
Young BM, Wiechert S, Coleman RA, Gurung P, Cook RT. Polyclonal and antigen-specific responses of T cells and T cell subsets. Methods Mol Biol. 2008;447:277-94. PubMed PMID: 18369925. Gurung P, Kucaba T, Ferguson TA, and Griffith TS. Activation-induced CD154 expression abrogates tolerance induced by apoptotic cells. The Journal of Immunology. Accepted, 2009. |
|