Nearly a year ago, in September 2024, Discovery Immunology took an important step forward by expanding its scope to include veterinary immunology. This decision reflected our commitment to supporting a broader spectrum of immunological research and fostering greater collaboration across disciplines. Since the journal’s launch in 2022, our goal has been to provide a platform for high-quality, Open Access research in cellular and molecular immunology. Including veterinary science was a natural progression, acknowledging the vital role of veterinary research in advancing our understanding of immune responses across species.
To support this expanded scope, we welcomed two highly respected veterinary immunologists, Isabelle Schwartz and Jayne Hope to our Editorial Board and clarified our scope to encourage submissions from this growing field. As Editor-in-Chief Professor Simon Milling has emphasized, discoveries made using veterinary models often have far-reaching implications for the wider immunology community.
In this blog post, we’re excited to highlight some of the excellent veterinary immunology research published in Discovery Immunology over the past year. These articles showcase the diversity, innovation, and relevance of veterinary immunology and underline why it’s an essential part of the immunological research landscape today.
By Eleni Vatzia, Yan Zhang, Ehsan Sedaghat-Rostami, Veronica Martini, Basudev Paudyal, Brigid Veronica Carr, Adam McNee, Chris Chiu, Katy Moffat, Becca Asquith, Peter Beverley, Derek Macallan and Elma Tchilian.
One of the standout veterinary immunology studies published in Discovery Immunology this year explored how airway-resident memory T cells (TRM) are maintained in the lungs of young pigs. This research, led by Eleni Vatzia and colleagues, used deuterium-labelled water to track dividing T cells, and revealed that TRM cells in the airways are not simply long-lived, static populations. Instead, they are dynamically replenished — likely through local proliferation in the lung tissue followed by migration into the airways.
These findings provide important insights into how memory T cells function in respiratory immunity and may inform future strategies for improving vaccines and treatments against respiratory pathogens in both animals and humans.
By Kathryn G Maskell, Anna Schönbichler, Andrew S Flies and Amanda L Patchett.
A recent study published in Discovery Immunology sheds light on the complex mechanisms behind two unique and devastating transmissible cancers threatening the Tasmanian devil population: devil facial tumour 1 (DFT1) and devil facial tumour 2 (DFT2). These cancers are unusual in that they spread between individuals like infectious diseases, and their ability to avoid immune detection has made controlling their spread extremely difficult.
The research team, led by Kathryn Maskell, focused on how these tumour cells change their phenotype to escape immune responses. By identifying key cytokines and growth factors, including NRG1, IL-16, TGFβ1, TGFβ2 and PDGFAA/AB they demonstrated how these molecules influence tumour cell behaviour. For example, PDGF signalling increased proliferation and migration, while TGFβ proteins triggered changes resembling epithelial-mesenchymal transition, enhancing mobility but reducing growth.
These findings not only deepen our understanding of cancer biology in a unique wildlife species but also point to potential targets for therapeutic intervention. This research could play a critical role in future conservation strategies for the Tasmanian devil, including the development of effective vaccines.
By Jessica Mallaby, William Mwangi, Joseph Ng, Alexander Stewart, Daniel Dorey-Robinson, David Kipling, Uri Hershberg, Franca Fraternali, Venugopal Nair and Deborah Dunn-Walters.
This study provides new insights into how domestic chickens generate antibody diversity, a critical component of immune protection in poultry. Effective immune responses depend on a diverse antibody repertoire, and in chickens, this diversity is primarily achieved through somatic gene conversion, a process that alters immunoglobulin (Ig) genes by copying sequences from pseudogenes into functional antibody genes.
Conducted by Jessica Mallaby and colleagues, the research used high-throughput long-read sequencing to analyse immune tissues from Rhode Island Red chickens. The team developed a novel software tool, BrepConvert, which identified over 1 million gene conversion events. Their findings showed that gene conversion in chickens follows highly specific and repetitive patterns, especially in regions critical for antigen recognition.
Interestingly, the study also revealed a bias in pseudogene usage and preferences in Ig gene rearrangement, suggesting that while chickens have a large potential for antibody diversity, the actual diversification process is more targeted than previously thought. These findings have important implications for poultry health and vaccine design, contributing to sustainable disease management in modern poultry production.
By Yolanda Corripio-Miyar, Adam D Hayward, Hannah Lemon, Xavier Bal, Cameron Cunnea, Fiona Kenyon, Jill G Pilkington, Josephine M Pemberton, Daniel H Nussey and Tom N McNeilly
In wild animals, the immune system must juggle threats from many parasites at once. A new study in Discovery Immunology followed over 500 wild Soay sheep on Scotland’s St. Kilda islands between 2019 and 2022, tracking body weight, parasite loads, and detailed measures of T-helper (Th) cell activity. While lab models often show Th1 and Th2 immune responses working in opposition, the researchers found these responses were actually positively linked in the wild. Antibody levels were remarkably consistent over time, while cell counts varied more. Two key cytokines, Interleukin-4 (Th2) and Interferon-γ (Th1) were moderately repeatable and both associated with lower parasite burdens: IL-4 with fewer gastrointestinal worm eggs, IFN-γ with fewer coccidian oocysts. However, none of the immune measures strongly predicted lamb survival. The findings suggest that, in nature, Th1 and Th2 responses can operate in harmony, but longer-term monitoring is needed to uncover their full impact on survival.
If you’re working in veterinary or ecoimmunology, we warmly encourage you to consider Discovery Immunology as the home for your next publication. Sharing your research with us not only helps advance knowledge in these vital fields but also directly supports the wider immunology community.
As a not-for-profit, the British Society for Immunology reinvests all journal revenue into grants, training, and initiatives that help immunology researchers thrive. Publishing with us is a way to contribute to this vital ecosystem while advancing your own research. We look forward to your submissions!