3096 Yasmine Belkaid and David Artis DOI: 10.1002/eji.201344133 Eur. J. Immunol. 2013.

43: 3096–3097
Immunity at the Barrier Review Series

Preface
Immunity at the Barriers
Yasmine Belkaid1,2 and David Artis3,4,5

1
Program in Barrier Immunity and Repair, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease,
Bethesda, MD, USA
2
Mucosal Immunology Section, Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy
and Infectious Disease, NIH, Bethesda, MD, USA
3
Department of Microbiology, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA
4
Institute for Immunology, Perelman School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA
5
Department of Pathobiology, School of Veterinary Medicine, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA, USA

Keywords: Gastrointestinal tract r Lung r Mucosal immunity r Skin

Maintenance of barrier defense is an essential component of mam- growing understanding that one of the cardinal features of barrier
malian host health and survival. Most antigens encountered by the tissues is their capacity to respond to defined challenges in a highly
immune system enter the body through the skin or mucosal sur- site-specific manner [2]. Maintenance of tolerance and restoration
faces of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and urogenital tract. The of tissue homeostasis following insults or exposure to pathogens
vast majority of infectious microorganisms use these tissues as rely on a complex and coordinated set of innate and adaptive
portals of entry. An additional feature of barrier tissues is their responses. Such tissue-specific immune specialization relies on the
constitutive and ever evolving relationship with highly diverse capacity of defined and site-specific populations of immune cells
and site-specific beneficial microbial communities referred to as to integrate local cues such as microbial products, metabolites,
the microbiota. Therefore, these tissues are charged with the cytokines, or hormones. These tailored networks are essential to
formidable task of protecting the host from pathogenic challenges, the induction of responses that preserve the physiological and
while maintaining a peaceful coexistence with resident microbiota functional requirements of a defined tissue. How epithelial cells,
and preserving vital physiologic tissue functions. mast cells, innate lymphoid cells, dendritic cells, or lymphocytes
At these sites, failure to control responses can lead to severe control homeostatic barrier immunity and how deregulation of
inflammatory disorders including asthma, inflammatory bowel these responses leads to severe inflammatory diseases is the main
disease, psoriasis, or food allergies. The incidence of these chronic focus of this review series.
inflammatory diseases, as with most pathologies at barrier tissues, To maintain a homeostatic relationship with the microbiota
has risen significantly in the past several decades [1]. Understand- and limit antigenic and pathogen exposure, protection is primar-
ing how immunity is controlled at barrier tissues as well as the ily mediated by an epithelial layer that forms a physical barrier
key stressors of these environments is not only of major public and is supported by both adaptive and innate arms of the immune
health interest but is also the object of intensive investigation. system. Over the past few years, it has become clear that epithelial
The review series on Immunity at the Barriers published in this cells via their capacity to produce mucus, antimicrobial peptides,
issue of the European Journal of Immunology highlights some of metabolites, and cytokines are a central determinant of immu-
the key questions and recent findings associated with our growing nity in tissue microenvironments [3]. Expanding on this concept,
understanding of how barrier immunity is regulated. the reviews by Lambrecht and Hammad [4], and Kurashima et
In recent years, immunological research has evolved from a al. [5] discuss how aberrant responses of gut or lung epithelial
lymphoid tissue-centric view of the immune system to the integra- cells downstream from effector responses lead to the breakdown
tion of tissue microenvironments as a fundamental determinant of of tissue homeostasis and severe pathologies such as asthma or
immune responses. This developing area of research has led to the inflammatory bowel disease, respectively.
Despite the specialization of each tissue and microenvi-
Correspondence: Dr. Yasmine Belkaid ronment, the expression of defined cytokines such as those
e-mail: [email protected] coupled with Th17 responses is relatively conserved between


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Eur. J. Immunol. 2013. 43: 3096–3097 HIGHLIGHTS 3097

barrier sites such as the lung, gastrointestinal tract, or skin. Indeed, Conflict of interest: The authors declare no financial or commer-
via their capacity to act both on epithelial cells and to control cial conflict of interest.
inflammatory cells, IL-22 and cytokines of the IL-17 family con-
tribute to both barrier homeostasis and immunity [6, 7]. In this
review series, Way et al. [8] discuss the factors controlling the References
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Collectively, this group of reviews serves to highlight the
rapidly growing knowledge of the pathways and cell types that
Full correspondence: Dr. Yasmine Belkaid, Mucosal Immunology
regulate immune cell homeostasis at barrier surfaces and spotlight
Section, Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy
some of the future challenges to be addressed in understanding and Infectious Disease, NIH, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA
barrier immunity in the context of infection, inflammation, and e-mail: [email protected]
tissue repair. or David Artis, Department of Microbiology, Institute for Immunology,
Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, PA 19104 USA
e-mail: [email protected]

See all articles in the Immunity at the Barrier Review Series at

Acknowledgements: This work was supported by the Division http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eji.v43.12/issuetoc
of Intramural Research, National Institute of Allergy and Infec-
tious Diseases, National Institutes of Health (Y.B.) and AI061570, Received: 1/10/2013
AI087990, AI074878, AI095776, AI102942, AI095466, AI095608, Revised: 1/10/2013
and AI097333 (D.A.). Accepted: 21/10/2013


C 2013 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim www.eji-journal.eu