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A sudden attack can cause chaos and damage. But a long-fought battle of attrition can have even greater eventual consequences. When chronic infections set in, they can cause long term illness and a decline in health. Antibodies, which typically see off any infection, put up an uncharacteristically ineffective defence against the chronic menace, allowing the infection to establish itself firmly in place. This underperformance isn’t well understood, so researchers investigated a particular protein involved in regulating the immune system, BMI-1. They found that in mice with a chronic viral infection (spleen cells pictured 7 days post infection, different cell types highlighted in different colours) BMI-1 was over-active, which caused the immune system to produce weaker antibodies. Blocking the protein boosted antibodies’ power to clear away the virus and reduced the presence of other factors limiting their effectiveness (yellow). If effective in humans, this approach could help patients overcome stubborn infections, clearing the way for a healthy recovery.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

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• Image from work by Andrea Di Pietro and colleagues, Jacobson Lab
• Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Monash University, Clayton, Victoria, Australia
• Image copyright held by the original authors
• Research published in Nature Immunology, November 2021