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NRI AT 20: IMMUNE CELL IDENTITY

The discovery of innate lymphoid cells

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 21, page 616 (2021)Cite this article

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Categorization and nomenclature have always been central activities in biology. In immunology, the identification and classification of cells and cell types continue to nurture our dissection of immunity. In particular, the distinction between innate and adaptive immunity was pivotal to our understanding of immune responses. In 2008 — 130 years after the identification of lymphoid and myeloid cells, and more than 40 years after the identification of T and B lymphocytes — a series of studies from 12 independent laboratories around the world revealed unexpected new players within the lymphocyte compartment. Specifically, populations of innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) were identified in humans and mice. Remarkably, ILCs were shown to be mostly tissue-resident and present at low numbers, and distinct subsets akin to T helper (TH) cell subsets could be characterized based on their cytokine production profiles. The newly identified ILC1s, ILC2s and ILC3s (which produce TH1-type, TH2-type and TH17/TH22-type cytokines, respectively) were grouped along with the previously identified natural killer (NK) cells and lymphoid-tissue inducer cells to define the five subsets of ILCs (Spits et al., 2013).

Since then, the presence of ILCs has been a common finding in inflamed tissues, and ILCs have been demonstrated to participate in the onset and maintenance of several inflammatory conditions (Vivier et al., 2018). However, although ILCs can be important for immune defence in immunodeficient conditions, they have been shown to be redundant for immune protection in humans living under modern day conditions (Vély et al., 2016).

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References

Original articles

  • Spits, H. et al. Innate lymphoid cells — a proposal for uniform nomenclature. Nat. Rev. Immunol. 13, 145–149 (2013)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre d’Immunologie de Marseille-Luminy, Aix Marseille Université, Hôpitaux Universitaires de Marseille, Marseille, France

    Eric Vivier

  2. Innate Pharma Research Laboratories, Innate Pharma, Marseille, France

    Eric Vivier

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  1. Eric Vivier
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Correspondence to Eric Vivier.

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Vivier, E. The discovery of innate lymphoid cells. Nat Rev Immunol 21, 616 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41577-021-00595-y

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