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“Taste cells” found in lungs, gut, pancreas, thymus, etc help the immune system – Nov 2019


Cells That ‘Taste’ Danger Set Off Immune Responses Quanta Magazine - Nov 2019

  • “Researchers around the world are tracing the ancient evolutionary roots that olfactory and taste receptors (collectively called chemosensory receptors or nutrient receptors) share with the immune system”
  • “Tuft cells had been known to science since the mid-1950s, when microscopy studies found them in the lining of practically every organ in the body, including the gut, the lungs, the nasal passages, the pancreas and the gallbladder.”
    • Tuft cells in the respiratory tract are also called “Bush Cells”
  • “Whatever their history, scientists now say that a major role of these receptors is to monitor the molecules in our body, tasting and smelling them for any sign that they might be from a pathogen”
  • “But Vaughan cautioned that the sudden emergence of tuft cells in tissues like the lungs, where they are not always present, might also cause its own pathologies”
    • “You may not always want to have the ability to [defensively] overreact,” he said. That could be part of what goes wrong in conditions like allergies and asthma: There could be dangers “if you have too many of these cells and they’re too poised to respond to the external environment.”
  • 7 minute TedTalk on Taste Cells in the body Aug 2017

A Bad Bout of Flu Triggers Tuft Cells to Grow in the Lungs March 2019

  • “"We had been looking at these solitary chemosensory cells in patients with nasal polyps and found that they were massively increased in the noses of these patients," says Cohen. "Interestingly, one of the hallmarks of these cells is also found elevated in the lungs of asthmatics; nasal polyps are found in about 50 percent of patients with asthma. These recent findings may be a link between Type 2 inflammatory diseases, such as asthma, as well as nasal polyps, following a respiratory viral infection.”
  • “To understand what these solo "taste bud" cells were doing in the lungs post-influenza, the researchers tried activating them, using bitter compounds. This stimulation not only caused tuft cell numbers to expand, it also triggered acute inflammation. In lungs that had not been infected and therefore lacked the tuft cells, no such inflammation occurred.”
  • “The presence of tuft cells, and their involvement in allergies and asthma, could also help explain why young children who acquire severe viral infections, such as respiratory syncytial virus are predisposed to developing asthma later in life.”

The mysterious pulmonary brush cell: a cell in search of a function - July 2005

Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2005 Jul 1;172(1):136-9
Reid L1, Meyrick B, Antony VB, Chang LY, Crapo JD, Reynolds HY.

Brush cells, also termed tuft, caveolated, multivesicular, and fibrillovesicular cells, are part of the epithelial layer in the gastrointestinal and respiratory tracts. The cells are characterized by the presence of a tuft of blunt, squat microvilli (approximately 120-140/cell) on the cell surface. The microvilli contain filaments that stretch into the underlying cytoplasm. They have a distinctive pear shape with a wide base and a narrow microvillous apex. The function of the pulmonary brush cell is obscure. For this reason, a working group convened on August 23, 2004, in Bethesda, Maryland, to review the physiologic role of the brush (microvillous) cell in normal airways and alveoli and in respiratory diseases involving the alveolar region (e.g., emphysema and fibrosis) and airway disease characterized by either excessive or insufficient amounts of airway fluid (e.g., cystic fibrosis, chronic bronchitis, and exercise-induced asthma). The group formulated several suggestions for future investigation. For example, it would be useful to have a panel of specific markers for the brush cell and in this way separate these cells for culture and more direct examination of their function (e.g., microarray analysis and proteomics). Using quantitative analysis, it was suggested to examine the number and location of the cells in disease models. Understanding the function of these cells in alveoli and airways may provide clues to the pathogenesis of several disease states (e.g., cystic fibrosis and fibrosis) as well as a key for new therapeutic modalities.
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