iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Reposted by Vincent van Unen

Fiamma Salerno @fiammasalerno.bsky.social · 05/09/2026

Beyond happy, proud, excited, and humbled to be part of this fantastic group of scientists! Thank you #ERCStG for this amazing opportunity! I cannot wait to see where the project will lead and the new discoveries we will make along the way! A dream come true! 🌟😃

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Reposted by Vincent van Unen

JCI insight @insight.jci.org · 16/08/2026

Sunday Read💫: @vincentvanunen.bsky.social & team @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social reveal shared patterns in immune cells between patients with Crohn's disease and those with ulcerative colitis, suggesting both conditions may be driven by some of the same unknown triggers: doi.org/10.1172/jci....

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Glad to see it out in print!! like T cell receptors and IBD? Check it out!

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Reposted by Vincent van Unen

Joram Mooiweer @jorammooiweer.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

We’ve been cooking something for a while, but we’re very happy to share the preprint now in its current form: "An autologous human duodenal IEL–organoid co-culture platform for studying immune–epithelial interactions" Link and threat below www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6... 🧵👇

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

This study shows that chronic IBD inflammation reflects a dynamic balance between restrained CD4 responses and persistent multifunctional HLA-DR+CD38+ effector cells, providing a framework for more precise therapies that rebalance mucosal immunity.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Our data reveal a tissue-embedded CD4 landscape in which regulatory restraint, Th17/Treg plasticity, and persistent multifunctional effector activity coexist, pointing toward therapies that rebalance rather than broadly suppress mucosal immunity.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

HLA-DR+CD38+ memory CD4 T cells were enriched in active IBD, decreased in remission, showed proliferative and Th1/Th17-like features, and retained multifunctionality despite broader CD4 T cell dampening.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

After TCR stimulation, CD4 memory T cells from inflamed mucosa displayed reduced cytokine production, including lower TNFα and IFNγ, suggesting a broader state of tissue-localized hyporesponsiveness.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

We also observed coordinated CD4 and CD8 T cell programs in inflamed tissue. Spatial imaging showed that CD103+CD4 T cells mainly localized in the lamina propria, whereas CD103+CD8 T cells were positioned closer to the epithelium.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Trajectory analysis suggested a bifurcation from an intermediate state into two inflammation-associated paths: One toward a tissue-resident Th17-like effector fate, and one toward a regulatory-like Foxp3+ state. This highlights CD4 T-cell plasticity in the inflamed mucosa.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

High-dimensional mapping revealed multiple inflammation-associated CD4 memory T cell clusters. These subsets expressed activation and tissue-adaptation markers, as well as transcriptional programs associated with Th1/Th17 and regulatory states.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

We confirmed that inflamed IBD tissue is strongly enriched for CD4 T cells. This expansion was observed in both CD and UC and decreased again during remission, linking the CD4 T cell compartment directly to active mucosal inflammation.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

We profiled fresh intestinal biopsies and paired blood samples from patients with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and non-IBD controls using high-dimensional spectral flow cytometry, T-cell stimulation assays, trajectory analysis, and spatial imaging.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

CD4 T helper cells are central to immune responses against the gut microbiota, but in human IBD it remains unclear how inflammatory, regulatory, and tissue-resident CD4 programs coexist and evolve within the intestinal mucosa.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Excited to share our new paper in @mucosalimmunol.bsky.social ! How do CD4 T cells behave directly inside inflamed intestinal tissue in IBD? Find out below 🧵! paper: sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

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Mucosal Immunology @mucosalimmunol.bsky.social · 29/06/2026

Tissue-embedded CD4+ plasticity defines #mucosal immunity in inflammatory bowel disease in this work from @vincentvanunen.bsky.social and colleagues, www.mucosalimmunology.org/article/S193...

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Reposted by Vincent van Unen

Fiamma Salerno @fiammasalerno.bsky.social · 25/04/2026

Thank you for highlighting our work! CD4 T cell differentiation is a dynamic process, shaped by interaction with different antigen-presenting cells rather than fixed early programming. If you want to know more about it, please see below 👇🏼

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

here a thread! bsky.app/profile/vinc...

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 19/06/2026

I am still kinda new on BlueSky. Interested in #IBD, #Tcells, #TCR ? I would kindly appreciate Reposts! :-) insight.jci.org/articles/vie...

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Waggoner Lab @labwaggoner.bsky.social · 15/06/2026

Shared CD4+ T cell receptor specificity groups in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis @insight.jci.org insight.jci.org/articles/vie... @stanforduniversity.bsky.social

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Grateful for the support that made this work possible: NIAID, NWO/ZonMw Rubicon, Horizon MSCA, and Propel a Cure for Crohn’s Disease Research. Most importantly, thank you to the patients and healthy donors whose samples enabled this study.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Huge congratulations to Joshua E. Chan, who led this work, and grateful for the close @stanfordmedicine.bsky.social – LUMC collaboration and the inspiring mentorship of Mark M. Davis.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

These data support a path toward antigen discovery and mechanism-guided stratification in IBD, moving beyond “UC vs CD” toward understanding which HLA-linked immune circuit is active in which patient. Paper: doi.org/10.1172/jci....

doi.org

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

In the same subset, we observed an increase in KIR+ CD8 T cells, a population we previously linked to classical autoimmune diseases. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

We also found expanded cytotoxic (GZMB+PRF1+) memory CD4 T cells in a small subset of patients with HLA-risk backgrounds. This points to a broader immune program beyond TCR specificity alone.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Importantly, HLA-DRB1 risk alleles dominated the five IBD-enriched specificity groups and were absent from the healthy-enriched groups. This connects genetic susceptibility to antigen-recognition patterns in memory CD4 T cells.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

This suggests that, despite clinical heterogeneity, Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis may converge on shared HLA-DRB1-linked antigen recognition programs. Not one “IBD clone”, but shared TCR specificity patterns across patients.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Key result: 15 specificity groups differed between healthy controls and IBD. Ten were enriched in healthy controls. Five were enriched in IBD, and all five were shared across Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

From 3.13 million TCRβ sequences, GLIPH2 identified 468,441 candidate specificity groups. After stringent filtering for motif structure, memory enrichment and HLA association, 440 high-confidence TCR specificity groups remained.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

We analysed 33 patients with IBD, including 20 with ulcerative colitis and 13 with Crohn’s disease, alongside 14 healthy controls. Using GLIPH2, we grouped TCRs by CDR3β motifs that are likely to share peptide–MHC recognition.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Why this matters: Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis differ clinically, but both involve dysregulated CD4 memory T cell responses. Because HLA-DRB1 shapes antigen presentation, we asked whether genetic risk leaves a detectable imprint on the TCR repertoire.

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Vincent van Unen @vincentvanunen.bsky.social · 18/06/2026

Excited to share our new paper in @insight.jci.org How does genetic risk shape CD4 T cell recognition in inflammatory bowel disease? #IBD We linked HLA-DRB1 genotype to >3.1 million memory CD4+ TCRβ sequences in Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis and controls.

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bioRxiv Immunology @biorxiv-immuno.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Tissue-embedded CD4⁺ plasticity structures mucosal immunity in IBD-related inflammation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…

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bioRxivpreprint @biorxivpreprint.bsky.social · 03/11/2025

Tissue-embedded CD4⁺ plasticity structures mucosal immunity in IBD-related inflammation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/202…

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Reposted by Vincent van Unen

Waggoner Lab @labwaggoner.bsky.social · 06/11/2025

@biorxiv-immuno.bsky.social Tissue-embedded CD4+ plasticity structures mucosal immunity in IBD-related inflammation www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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