Lymph node articles from across Nature Portfolio

Triple-negative breast cancers are aggressive tumours, but their prognosis is critically determined by the immune cell activity within the microenvironment, with the more inflamed, hot milieu predicting better prognosis. Here authors show that the tumour draining lymph nodes, even if not invaded by the tumours, reflect the difference between the cold and hot tumours via differential Th2 polarization.

SpaGFT is a spatial omics representation method. It identifies spatially variable genes, enhances gene imputation, detects immunological regions, and characterises variations in secondary lymphoid organs. This method improves predictive power in wide downstream machine-learning tasks.

Mudd, Ellebedy and colleagues integrate single-cell transcriptomics and TCR sequencing to characterize the spike-specific CD4⁺ T_FH cell response in the lymph nodes and blood of BNT162b2-vaccinated and SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals up to 6 months after vaccination or infection.

Disruption of leukaemia inhibitory factor production from group 2 innate lymphoid cells prevents immune cells leaving the lungs to migrate to lymph nodes, leading to plasmacytoid dendritic cells becoming retained in the lungs following viral infection.

Accumulation of inhaled carbon particulates in lung-draining lymph nodes with age impairs respiratory immunity.

Inhaled particulates from environmental pollutants accumulate in macrophages in lung-associated lymph nodes over years, compromising immune surveillance via direct effects on immune cell function and lymphoid architecture. These findings reveal the importance of improved air quality to preserve immune health against current and emerging pathogens.

Unconventional T cells of different lineages migrate from peripheral tissues to draining lymph nodes, where they operate as a connected functional unit to shape tissue-specific responses.

Multistep mechanosensing of lymphocyte infiltration and proliferation by the remodeling stroma and matrix underlies the immensely rapid and massive tissue expansion by lymph nodes in response to immune challenge.

Lymph node colonization by tumour cells promotes subsequent spread to distant tissues by inducing broad alterations in tumour immunity and generating tumour-specific immune tolerance.