Allergy & Immunology

Pablo, originally from Spain, obtained his bachelors in Immunology in the University of Glasgow, Scotland, at the age of 22. In his third year, he went on an Erasmus+ exchange to Lund University, Sweden, where he studied Microbiology in more detail. He then moved to Vancouver for the MSc program in Microbiology & Immunology, which was completed in July 2020 with three papers and one review currently under revision. Pablo loves penguins.

Besides amplifying type 2 immune responses, the role of Type 2 Innate Lymphoid Cells (ILC2s) in cancer remains ambiguous. While some studies suggest that ILC2s exert immunosuppressive functions, others present evidence they enhance anti-cancer immunity. Here, we report that ILC2s from the lungs of mice with tumours are able to cross-present and effectively cross-prime a population of CD8+ T-lymphocytes. Our data also demonstrates that ILC2s from naïve mice are less efficient at antigen crosspresentation, suggesting a plasticity in cellular identity that questions current models of ILC2 involvement in tumour biology. We propose a mechanism in which the presence of a tumour triggers an alarmin reaction that activates ILC2s capable of cross-priming TH1 anti-tumour cytolytic T lymphocyte responses. Thus, ILC2s join dendritic cells in acting as professional antigen-presenting cells for MHC-I responses.