One of the amazing things about science is that what we thought we knew was right is often wrong.  I know that can be disappointing,  but to me it’s pretty exhilarating.

I can recall reading my dad’s chemistry, biology, and physics texts, when I was a tyke. And, was amazed at how wrong they were.  (Don’t even get me started on his history books that described the World War (there wasn’t a second one, yet.)

I recall much of what I learned in college and grad school is no longer complete- or may even be off-track.  Which is one of the major reasons why we need to keep current in our fields. If we don’t, we simply just don’t know enough to be useful.

That’s exactly what’s happening in immunology.  What I was teaching even 6 years ago is, now, at best. only part of the picture. I taught that our bodies resisted infection via two pathways.  One- outside the cells- produces antibodies that attack the invaders.  (This is called the ‘adaptive immune system’.)  And, inside the cells (the ‘innate immune system’), a non-specific system, attacks all invaders- but leaves no long-term defenses against a specific invader for the next attack.   However, we are now seeing that antibodies don’t just work outside the cells, but combat viruses from within the cells.

Dr. L. James and W. McEwan and their team at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, England) [the original article is no longer available; this explains that article.- 2022 update] have determined that adenoviri (the culprits behind the common cold) are attacked within the cell by antibodies.   And, one of the key components is something they called TRIM21.  It seems that TRIM21 manages to dispose of the virus- and it also sounds an alarm to the rest of the cell that the cell is under attack.

Now that Drs. James and McEwan have fought their crusade (many journals refused to accept their findings- and their publications- since it was contrary to “popular” opinion; that seems no longer to be the case with this new citation in Nature.), it is hoped that we can use their revolutionary discovery to develop new modalities to attack viral infections.  After all, this modality means that vaccinations are no longer the only way to go- there may be a specific molecule we can develop, akin to antibiotic actions against bacterial infections, to help our bodies against attack.

This new molecule, TRIM21 is found in the ribonucleoprotein RoSSA (comprised of a polypeptide attached to one of four potential RNA molecules).  RoSSA is the critical agent in Sjogren’s Syndrome and Lupus.  So, now, maybe we can also determine why our bodies decide to attack themselves, just as they do with these diseases.

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