Sensitization to the fungus Aspergillus fumigatus is associated with allergic airway disease and asthma. Now Dale Umetsu and colleagues report that invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells directly recognize the glycosphingolipid asperamide B derived from A. fumigatus. Asperamide B stains and activates mouse and human iNKT cells and induces airway hyper-reactivity in mice, suggesting that fungi can be directly detected by iNKT cells.
- Lee A Albacker
- Vinod Chaudhary
- Dale T Umetsu
