Kellie Machlus: Bone Marrow Megakaryocytes Present Antigens and Regulate T Cells
Kellie Machlus, Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School, shared Virginia Camacho’s post on LinkedIn։
“Our lab loves a megakaryocyte.
But Ginny took her expertise in immunology and showed that bone marrow MKs can do much more than make platelets.
Excited to add to the story of immune MKs and define this subpopulation and its functionality.
So many exciting implications to explore!!
So proud of this work, Virginia Camacho, and all your beautiful science.
Thank you to all our collaborators!”
Virginia Camacho, Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Boston Children’s Hospital, shared a post on LinkedIn about a recent article she and her colleagures co-authored, published in Cell Reports, adding:
Excited to share our latest work, now published in Cell Reports!
In this study, we show that megakaryocytes do more than produce platelets.
A subset of megakaryocytes expresses MHC class II and can process and present antigens to T cells, influencing T cell activation and and regulatory T cell differentiation.
These findings highlight an underappreciated role for MKs at the intersection of hematopoiesis and immunity.
We hope this work lays the foundation for future investigations into the implications of megakaryocyte-mediated immunoregulatory functions in disease, aging or malignancy contexts.
Grateful to past and present MK-Platelet Research Group members and our wonderful collaborators.
A special thank you to Karen Wang, who delivered beyond expectations and made this story possible; to Pavel Hanč for his outstanding collaborative efforts, and to Monste, and Jaxaira Maggi at the CSIC, whose expertise made the first immunopeptidomic characterization of megakaryocytes possible!
And my co-mentor Joseph Italiano for always encouraging us push the technological boundaries of what we can explore in MK/platelet biology.
Finally, a huge thank you to my PI Kellie Machlus, for giving me the opportunity to bring together my first love (T cells) and my new love (megakaryocytes)!”
Title: MHC II-expressing bone marrow megakaryocytes are noncanonical antigen-presenting cells and activate CD4+ T cells ex vivo
Authors: Virginia Camacho, Karen G. Wang, Pavel Hanč, Estelle Carminita, Isabelle C. Becker, Dong H. Lee, Mahmoud A. Bassal, Marcelo Falchetti, Jaxaira Maggi, Maria Barrachina, Ulrich von Andrian, Montserrat Carrascal, Deepa Gautam, Chen Weng, Vijay G. Sankaran, Joseph E. Italiano, Kellie R. Machlus
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