Unveiling the sensing potential of innate lymphoid cells.

Authors

Raquel Castillo-González, Lucía Sancho-Temiño, Alba Seguí-Pérez, Giuseppe Sciumè, Ivana Stojanović, Aránzazu Cruz-Adalia

Published in

Communications biology. Volume 9. Issue 1. Jul 20, 2026. Epub Jul 20, 2026.

Abstract

Innate lymphoid cells (ILCs) are key regulators of early immune responses and play a central role in mucosal immunity, where they contribute to host defense and tissue homoeostasis. This review synthesizes evidence that ILCs, including natural killer cells (NKs), ILC1s, ILC2s, ILC3s, and lymphoid tissue inducer (LTi) cells, directly sense pathogens via pattern recognition receptors (PRRs). Beyond their established role as cytokine responders, emerging data reveal that ILCs engage PRRs to initiate complementary, context-dependent signaling pathways. This direct recognition mechanism redefines the functional landscape of ILCs in early immune surveillance, moving beyond reliance on indirect stromal signals. Collectively, these insights reposition ILCs as active sentinels in host defense and highlight the ILC-PRR axis as a novel therapeutic avenue for modulating immune responses in infectious, inflammatory, and cancer-related diseases.

PMID:
42477434
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 21 Jul 2026.

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