Fu et al. analyze Bcl6fl/flFoxp3Cre/Cre mice and show that Tfr deficiency enhances immunity to influenza virus but promotes autoimmunity, which sheds new light on the understanding and treatment of autoimmune diseases.

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BACKGROUND The gastric microbiota in patients with gastric cancer (GC) has received increasing attention, but the profiling of the gastric microbiome through the histological stages of gastric tumorigenesis remains poorly understood, especially for patients with Helicobacter pylori -negative GC (HPNGC). AIM To characterize microbial profiles of gastric mucosa and juice for HPNGC carcinogenesis and identify distinct taxa in precancerous lesions. METHODS The 16S rRNA gene analysis was performed on gastric mucosa from 134 Helicobacter pylori -negative cases, including 56 superficial gastritis (SG), 9 atrophic gastritis (AG), 27 intestinal metaplasia (IM), 29 dysplasia (Dys), and 13 GC cases, to investigate differences in gastric microbial diversity and composition across the disease stages. In addition, paired gastric mucosa and juice samples from 18 SG, 18 IM, and 18 Dys samples were analyzed. α-Diversity was measured by Shannon and Chao1 indexes, and β-diversity was calculated using partial least squares discrimination analysis (PLS-DA). Differences in the microbial composition across disease stages in different sample types were assessed using the linear discriminant analysis effect size. RESULTS The diversity and composition of the bacterial microbiota in the gastric mucosa changed progressively across stages of gastric carcinogenesis. The diversity of the gastric mucosa microbiota was found to be significantly lower in the IM and Dys groups than in the SG group, and the patients with GC had the lowest bacterial community richness ( P < 0.05). Patients with IM and those with Dys had similar gastric mucosa microbiota profiles with Ralstonia and Rhodococcus as the predominant genera. Microbial network analysis showed that there was increasing correlation strength between IM and Dys (|correlation threshold|≥ 0.5, P < 0.05). GC and its precancerous lesions have distinguishable bacterial taxa; our results identified HPNGC-associated bacteria Streptococcaceae and Lactobacillaceae ( P < 0.05). Additionally, across precancerous lesion stages from AG to Dys in Helicobacter pylori -negative patients, Burkholderiaceae abundance continuously increased, while Streptococcaceae and Prevotellaceae abundance presented a continuous downward trend. Furthermore, the microbial diversity was higher in gastric juice ( P < 0.001) than in the mucosa, while PLS-DA revealed a statistically significant difference between the two groups (ANOSIM, P = 0.001). A significant difference in the microbial structure was identified, with ...

Cytokines mediate the interaction of immune cells. Discovery of novel potential cytokines is of great value for both basic research and clinical application. In this study, we identified a novel immune-related molecule, transmembrane protein 98 (TMEM98), through a high-throughput screening platform for novel potential cytokines at a genome-wide level using the strategy of immunogenomics. So far, there is no characteristic and immune-related functional report about it. In this study, we demonstrate that TMEM98 exists as a type II transmembrane protein both in the ectopically and endogenously expressed systems. Interestingly, TMEM98 could also be secreted through exosomes. Moreover, the native secreted form of TMEM98 could be detected in the supernatants of activated human peripheral blood mononuclear cells and mouse CD4 + T cells. Further expression profile analysis showed TMEM98 was upregulated during the activation and differentiation of T helper (Th) 1 cells. Function analysis showed that eukaryotic recombinant TMEM98 (rTMEM98) promoted the differentiation of Th1 cells under both antigen-nonspecific and antigen-specific Th1-skewing conditions. These findings were further confirmed in vivo as prokaryotic rTMEM98 administration significantly increased antigenspecific IFN-g production and serum antigen-specific IgG2a in the methylated bovine serum albumin-induced delayed-type hypersensitivity model. Overall, these observations emphasize the characteristics and essential roles of TMEM98 for the first time and will be helpful in further understanding the development of Th1 cells.