The immune system is capable of distinguishing between danger- and non-danger signals, thus inducing either an appropriate immune response against pathogens and cancer or inducing self-tolerance to avoid autoimmunity and immunopathology. One of the mechanisms that have evolved to prevent destruction by the immune system, is to functionally silence effector T cells, termed T cell exhaustion, which is also exploited by viruses and cancers for immune escape In this review, we discuss some of the phenotypic markers associated with T cell exhaustion and we summarize current strategies to reinvigorate exhausted T cells by blocking these surface marker using monoclonal antibodies.

Mutations are the basis for evolution and the development of genetic diseases. Especially in cancer, somatic mutations in oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes alongside the occurrence of passenger mutations have been observed by recent deep-sequencing approaches. While mutations have long been considered random events induced by DNA-replication errors or by DNA damaging agents, genome sequencing led to the discovery of non-random mutation signatures in many human cancer. Common non-random mutations comprise DNA strand-biased mutation showers and mutations restricted to certain DNA motifs, which recently have become attributed to the activity of the AID/APOBEC family of DNA deaminases. Hence, APOBEC enzymes, which have evolved as key players in natural and adaptive immunity, have been proposed to contribute to cancer development and clonal evolution of cancer by inducing collateral genomic damage due to their DNA deaminating activity. This review focuses on how mutagenic events through AID/APOBEC deaminases may contribute to cancer development.

The carboxyterminal region of activation-induced deaminase (AID) is required for its function in Ig class switch recombination (CSR) and also contains a nuclear-export sequence (NES). Here, based on an extensive fine-structure mutation analysis of the AID NES, as well as from AID chimeras bearing heterologous NESs, we show that while a functional NES is indeed essential for CSR, it is not sufficient. The precise nature of the NES is critical both for AID stabilization and CSR function: minor changes in the NES can perturb stabilization and CSR without jeopardizing nuclear export. The results indicate that the AID NES fulfills a function beyond simply providing a signal for nuclear export and suggest the possibility that the quality of exportin-binding may be critical to the stabilization of AID and its activity in CSR.activation-induced deaminase ͉ antibody diversification ͉ immunoglobulin class switching ͉ exportin ͉ nuclear transport A ctivation-induced deaminase (AID) plays a central role in antibody gene-diversification, triggering both somatic hypermutation (SHM) and class-switch recombination (CSR) by deaminating deoxycytidine residues within the Ig locus to yield deoxyuridine (1, 2).AID is largely found in the cytoplasm of activated B cells but shuttles between cytoplasm and nucleus (3-6). The C-terminal amino acids of AID comprise a nuclear-export sequence (NES): removal of this NES causes AID to be restricted to the nucleus, whereas its addition to a heterologous nuclear protein drives export of the fusion protein into the cytoplasm (3-5). The sequence of the AID C-terminus conforms well to the consensus established for substrates of the Crm1-dependent export machinery: in keeping with this, export mediated by the AID NES is sensitive to leptomycin B.Analysis of both clinical and contrived mutations in AID have revealed that the AID C-terminal region is also essential for its function in CSR, although not in SHM (7-9). The C-terminal mutations that interfere with AID's ability to potentiate CSR do not compromise its ability to deaminate deoxycytidine in biochemical or bacterial genetic assays. Thus, as previously suggested by others, either the nuclear/cytoplasmic shuttling of AID must be specifically required for CSR or, alternatively, factors specific for CSR must interact with the C-terminal region of AID in an area overlapping the NES (4, 5, 7-9).It was with a view to discriminating these possibilities that we embarked on a refined mutagenic dissection of the AID NES and investigated the ability of heterologous NESs to substitute for the AID NES. Our results suggest that although nuclear export is likely necessary for CSR, this is not the sole function of the AID C-terminal region, with the data raising the possibility that successful CSR depends on the precise quality of AID binding to exportin or a related protein. Results NES Function and CSR Correlate in Alanine-Scanning Mutagenesis.To ascertain whether there was a correlation between export activity and CSR, we performed an alanine-scanning mut...

SummarySignalling through the B cell antigen receptor (BCR) is required for peripheral B lymphocyte maturation, maintenance, activation and silencing. In mature B cells, the antigen receptor normally consists of two isotypes, membrane IgM and IgD (mIgM, mIgD). Although the signals initiated from both isotypes differ in kinetics and intensity, in vivo, the BCR of either isotype seems to be able to compensate for the loss of the other, reflected by the mild phenotypes of mice deficient for mIgM or mIgD. Thus, it is still unclear why mature B cells need expression of mIgD in addition to mIgM. In the current review we suggest that the view that IgD has a simpIy definable function centred around the basic signalling function should be replaced by the assumption that IgD fine tunes humoral responses, modulates B cell selection and homeostasis and thus shapes the B cell repertoire, defining IgD to be a key modulator of the humoral immune response.