The fact that gender influences the immune system has long been recognised. The higher risk of women developing autoimmune diseases suggests that these are somehow mediated by sex steroids, with estrogens as enhancers at least of the humoral immunity and androgens and progesterone as natural immune-suppressors. The concept of immunosenescence reflects changes in both cellular and humoral immune...

Suppressors of cytokine signaling (SOCS) are inducible intracellular proteins that play essential regulatory roles in both immune and non-immune function. Of the eight known members, SOCS1 and SOCS3 in conjunction with regulatory T cells play key roles in regulation of the immune system. Molecular tools such as gene transfections and siRNA have played a major role in our functional understandin...

The activating receptor NKG2D, expressed on different innate and adaptive cytotoxic lymphocytes, has been demonstrated to play an important role in anti-tumor immunity. Now evidence is provided that tumor suppressors control expression of its ligand ULBP2 supporting the role of this receptor-ligand system as an innate barrier against tumor development.