Maintenance of the blood system is dependent on dormant haematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) with long-term self-renewal capacity. After injury these cells are induced to proliferate to quickly re-establish homeostasis. The signalling molecules promoting the exit of HSCs out of the dormant stage remain largely unknown. Here we show that in response to treatment of mice with interferon-alpha (IFNalpha), HSCs efficiently exit G(0) and enter an active cell cycle. HSCs respond to IFNalpha treatment by the increased phosphorylation of STAT1 and PKB/Akt (also known as AKT1), the expression of IFNalpha target genes, and the upregulation of stem cell antigen-1 (Sca-1, also known as LY6A). HSCs lacking the IFNalpha/beta receptor (IFNAR), STAT1 (ref. 3) or Sca-1 (ref. 4) are insensitive to IFNalpha stimulation, demonstrating that STAT1 and Sca-1 mediate IFNalpha-induced HSC proliferation. Although dormant HSCs are resistant to the anti-proliferative chemotherapeutic agent 5-fluoro-uracil, HSCs pre-treated (primed) with IFNalpha and thus induced to proliferate are efficiently eliminated by 5-fluoro-uracil exposure in vivo. Conversely, HSCs chronically activated by IFNalpha are functionally compromised and are rapidly out-competed by non-activatable Ifnar(-/-) cells in competitive repopulation assays. Whereas chronic activation of the IFNalpha pathway in HSCs impairs their function, acute IFNalpha treatment promotes the proliferation of dormant HSCs in vivo. These data may help to clarify the so far unexplained clinical effects of IFNalpha on leukaemic cells, and raise the possibility for new applications of type I interferons to target cancer stem cells.

Dendritic cell responsiveness to type I interferon is required for the generation of antitumor T cell responses and tumor rejection.

The action of type I interferons in the central nervous system (CNS) during autoimmunity is largely unknown. Here, we demonstrate elevated interferon beta concentrations in the CNS, but not blood, of mice with experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a model for CNS autoimmunity. Furthermore, mice devoid of the broadly expressed type I IFN receptor (IFNAR) developed exacerbated clinical disease accompanied by a markedly higher inflammation, demyelination, and lethality without shifting the T helper 17 (Th17) or Th1 cell immune response. Whereas adoptive transfer of encephalitogenic T cells led to enhanced disease in Ifnar1(-/-) mice, newly created conditional mice with B or T lymphocyte-specific IFNAR ablation showed normal EAE. The engagement of IFNAR on neuroectodermal CNS cells had no protective effect. In contrast, absence of IFNAR on myeloid cells led to severe disease with an enhanced effector phase and increased lethality, indicating a distinct protective function of type I IFNs during autoimmune inflammation of the CNS.

Genetic and epigenetic plasticity allows tumors to evade single-targeted treatments. Here we direct Bcl2-specific short interfering RNA (siRNA) with 5'-triphosphate ends (3p-siRNA) against melanoma. Recognition of 5'-triphosphate by the cytosolic antiviral helicase retinoic acid-induced protein I (Rig-I, encoded by Ddx58) activated innate immune cells such as dendritic cells and directly induced expression of interferons (IFNs) and apoptosis in tumor cells. These Rig-I-mediated activities synergized with siRNA-mediated Bcl2 silencing to provoke massive apoptosis of tumor cells in lung metastases in vivo. The therapeutic activity required natural killer cells and IFN, as well as silencing of Bcl2, as evidenced by rescue with a mutated Bcl2 target, by site-specific cleavage of Bcl2 messenger RNA in lung metastases and downregulation of Bcl-2 protein in tumor cells in vivo. Together, 3p-siRNA represents a single molecule-based approach in which Rig-I activation on both the immune- and tumor cell level corrects immune ignorance and in which gene silencing corrects key molecular events that govern tumor cell survival.

Type I interferons (IFNs) are pro-inflammatory cytokines that are rapidly induced in different cell types during viral infections. The consequences of type I IFN signalling include direct antiviral activity, innate immune cell activation and regulation of adaptive immune responses. In this Review, we discuss recent conceptual advances in our understanding of indirect and direct regulation of T cell immunity by type I IFNs, which can either promote or inhibit T cell activation, proliferation, differentiation and survival. This regulation depends, to a large extent, on the timing of type I IFN exposure relative to T cell receptor signalling. Type I IFNs also provide activated T cells with resistance to natural killer cell-mediated elimination.

␤-Secretase (BACE1) is the rate-limiting protease for the generation of the amyloid ␤-peptide (A␤) in Alzheimer disease. Mice in which the bace1 gene is inactivated are reported to be healthy. However, the presence of a homologous gene encoding BACE2 raises the possibility of compensatory mechanisms. Therefore, we have generated bace1, bace2, and double knockout mice. We report here that BACE1 mice display a complex phenotype. A variable but significant number of BACE1 offspring died in the first weeks after birth. The surviving mice remained smaller than their littermate controls and presented a hyperactive behavior. Electrophysiologically, subtle alterations in the steady-state inactivation of voltage-gated sodium channels in BACE1-deficient neurons were observed. In contrast, bace2 knockout mice displayed an overall healthy phenotype. However, a combined deficiency of BACE2 and BACE1 enhanced the bace1 ؊/؊ lethality phenotype. At the biochemical level, we have confirmed that BACE1 deficiency results in an almost complete block of A␤ generation in neurons, but not in glia. As glia are 10 times more abundant in brain compared with neurons, our data indicate that BACE2 could indeed contribute to A␤ generation in the brains of Alzheimer disease and, in particular, Down syndrome patients. In conclusion, our data challenge the general idea of BACE1 as a safe drug target and call for some caution when claiming that no major side effects should be expected from blocking BACE1 activity. Alzheimer disease (AD)1 is the most common cause of dementia for which neither a good diagnostic test nor an effective treatment is available yet. The most widely accepted hypothesis states that AD is initially triggered by the abnormal accumulation and possibly deposition of the small amyloid ␤-peptide (A␤) in different brain regions, which in turn initiates a pathogenic cascade that ultimately leads to neuronal death, AD pathology, and dementia. A␤ is cleaved from a long membranebound precursor, the amyloid precursor protein (APP), by two consecutive cleavages. ␤-and ␥-secretases are the enzymes that liberate the N and C termini of A␤, respectively, and are the subject of intense investigation because of their relevance as candidate therapeutic targets to treat AD.BACE1 and BACE2 are two highly homologous membranebound aspartyl proteases that can process APP at the ␤-secretase site (1-8). Although both enzymes exhibit many of the characteristics expected for ␤-secretase, it has been quite convincingly demonstrated that BACE1 is in fact the major ␤-secretase responsible for A␤ generation in brain (9 -11). Contrary to BACE1, BACE2 is more highly expressed in peripheral tissues, but also to some extent in brain (2,8,12,13), raising the question of whether BACE2 could contribute to the generation of the brain A␤ pool. Both BACE1 and BACE2 can cleave APP in vitro not only at Asp 1 (numbering considering the first amino acid of A␤ as position 1), but also at internal sites within the A␤ region. BACE1 cleaves between amino acids 10 and 11 o...

Although prion proteins are most efficiently propagated through intracerebral inoculation, peripheral administration has caused the diseases kuru, iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE) and new-variant CJD. The development of neurological disease after peripheral inoculation depends on prion expansion within cells of the lymphoreticular system. Here we investigate the identity of these cells by using a panel of immune-deficient mice inoculated with prions intraperitoneally: we found that defects affecting only T lymphocytes had no apparent effect, but that all mutations that disrupted the differentiation and response of B lymphocytes prevented the development of clinical scrapie. As an absence of B cells and of antibodies correlates with severe defects in follicular dendritic cells, a lack of any of these three components may prevent the development of clinical scrapie. However, we found that scrapie developed after peripheral inoculation in mice expressing immunoglobulins that were exclusively of the M subclass and without detectable specificity for the normal form of the prion PrPC, and in mice which had differentiated B cells but no functional follicular dendritic cells. We conclude that differentiated B cells are crucial for neuroinvasion by scrapie, regardless of the specificity of their receptors.

Before they infect red blood cells and cause malaria, Plasmodium parasites undergo an obligate and clinically silent expansion phase in the liver that is supposedly undetected by the host. Here, we demonstrate the engagement of a type I interferon (IFN) response during Plasmodium replication in the liver. We identified Plasmodium RNA as a novel pathogen-associated molecular pattern (PAMP) capable of activating a type I IFN response via the cytosolic pattern recognition receptor Mda5. This response, initiated by liver-resident cells through the adaptor molecule for cytosolic RNA sensors, Mavs, and the transcription factors Irf3 and Irf7, is propagated by hepatocytes in an interferon-α/β receptor–dependent manner. This signaling pathway is critical for immune cell–mediated host resistance to liver-stage Plasmodium infection, which can be primed with other PAMPs, including hepatitis C virus RNA. Together, our results show that the liver has sensor mechanisms for Plasmodium that mediate a functional antiparasite response driven by type I IFN.