image: Schematic of the AND-gate-specific cytokine converter-based psoriasis treatment. Psoriasisassociated skin inflammation is based on an erroneous crosstalk in the dermis between keratinocytes and tissue-resident dendritic cells, which hyperstimulates immune cells and results in excessive keratinocyte proliferation. The crosstalk also drives production and release of the inflammatory cytokines TNF and IL22 into circulation, which is in turn sensed by the cytokine converter. This process coordinates the expression and release of therapeutic levels of the antiinflammatory cytokines IL4 and IL10 by the designer cells, which diffuse into the blood stream and reach the affected skin areas, where they attenuate the psoriasis-associated inflammation. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the Dec. 16, 2015, issue of Science Translational Medicine, published by AAAS. The paper, by Lina Schukur at ETH Zurich in Basel, Switzerland, and colleagues was titled, "Implantable synthetic cytokine converter cells with AND-gate logic treat experimental psoriasis." view more
Credit: Schukur <i>et al., Science Translational Medicine</i> (2015)