Affiliations: John Curtin School of Medical Research, The Australian
National University, Canberra ACT, Australia | Department of Immunology, The Canberra Hospital,
Garran, ACT, Australia | Nuffield Department of Clinical Medicine, Oxford
University, UK
Note: [] Corresponding author: Richard J. Cornall, Nuffield Department of
Clinical Medicine, Oxford University, UK. Tel.: +44 1865 287790; Fax: +44 1865
287787; E-mail: richard.cornall@ccmp.ox.ac.uk
Abstract: The processes that normally generate and maintain adaptive immunity
and immunological memory are poorly understood, and yet of fundamental
importance when infectious diseases place such a major economic and social
burden on the world's health and agriculture systems. Defects in these
mechanisms also underlie the many forms of human primary immunodeficiency.
Identifying these mechanisms in a systematic way is therefore important if we
are to develop better strategies for treating and preventing infection,
inherited disease, transplant rejection and autoimmunity. In this review we
describe a genome-wide screen in mice for the genes important for generating
these adaptive responses, and describe two independent DOCK8 mutant mice
strains identified by this screen. DOCK 8 was found to play an essential role
in humoral immune responses and to be important in the proper formation of the
B cell immunological synapse.
Keywords: DOCK8, germinal center, immunodeficiency, DOCK family, guanine exchange factor
DOI: 10.3233/DMA-2010-0739
Journal: Disease Markers, vol. 29, no. 3-4, pp. 141-150, 2010
