PILOT researchers investigate the effects of early life dietary changes on immune cells

PILOT group leaders Barbara Schraml, Christian Schulz and Michele Proietti, together with Sadiq Nasrah, Doğuş Altunöz and Kaushikk Ravi, investigated how the dietary transition from milk to solid foods ("weaning") influences dendtritic cells and CD8+ T cells in a mouse model. The observed effects were also present in germ free mice, hence they are not mediated by the gut microbiota:

The article "Peri-weaning, diet-induced activation of an IFNγ-mediated regulatory circuit promotes cDC1 maturation and CD8+ T cell differentiation" was recently published in Nature Communications (link to the full article below).

Abstract

Maintaining a balanced immunity between pathogen defense and tolerance to environmental antigens in neonates is essential for survival and the establishment of life-long immune homeostasis. Instructed by environmental signals, type 1 conventional dendritic cells (cDC1) contribute to both processes but how the balance may be achieved is unclear. Here, we uncover an interferon (IFN)γ-driven regulatory circuit in early life that relays dietary cues to spleen cDC1. IFNγ-mediated STAT1-signaling induces an immunogenic maturation program in spleen cDC1 that enables them to shape the effector differentiation of antigen-experienced effector memory CD8⁺ T cells. This cDC1 program emerges during the transition from breastfeeding to solid food at weaning, occurs in germ-free mice, and remains operative to dietary intervention in adult mice. At weaning, this IFNγ signal enables spleen cDC1 to shape the effector phenotype of food-antigen-specific CD8+ T cells in a feedforward manner, thereby recalibrating the developing T cell pool. Our findings identify diet as a modifiable cue that can tune systemic cDC1-mediated immunity, opening new opportunities to steer immune responses during early life and beyond.

Link to the full article: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-75853-5

Press release by the LMU: https://www.lmu.de/en/newsroom/news-overview/news/transition-from-milk-to-solid-food-shapes-immune-system-development-2a0c5579.html