Credit score: Magda Ehlers from Pexels
Many ailments have an effect on women and men in a different way. Bronchial asthma tends to strike males earlier in life, but extra ladies develop bronchial asthma as they grow old. Parkinson’s is extra frequent in males, however Alzheimer’s is extra frequent in ladies.
The variations are much more stark on the subject of autoimmune illness. Ladies are round two and a half occasions extra doubtless than males to develop a number of sclerosis and 9 occasions extra prone to develop lupus.
Why would some ailments strike one intercourse greater than one other? And why do some tissues, such because the lungs and mind, appear particularly susceptible to those sex-based variations?
To reply these questions, scientists at La Jolla Institute for Immunology (LJI) are main new analysis into how our immune cells defend particular components of the physique.
In a brand new Science evaluation, titled “Sex differences in tissue-specific immunity and immunology,” LJI Professor, President & CEO Erica Ollmann Saphire, Ph.D., MBA, and LJI Affiliate Professor Sonia Sharma, Ph.D., study how genetics, intercourse hormones, and environmental components come collectively to form the immune system.
“In just the last two years, LJI scientists have uncovered a whole new body of information about how the immune systems of men and women are very different,” says Saphire.
“We’re looking at what is genetically encoded in our XX or XY chromosomes, and how hormones like estrogen and testosterone affect what is genetically programmed into our immune cells.”
Within the paper, the researchers outline organic intercourse (in an immunology context) because the presence of XX chromosomes in females and XY chromosomes in males. “Every cell in your body is either XX or XY,” says Saphire.
“That X chromosome has many, many immune-related genes. Ladies have two copies of every. That provides them, in a way, twice the palette of colours to color from in formulating an immune response. It will probably additionally give them a stronger immune response for these genes which might be doubly lively—lively in each copies concurrently.
Intercourse hormones are vital for far more than reproductive perform. Immune cells may also sense hormones equivalent to estrogen and testosterone and use them to find out which genes to activate or off and which of them to activate extra brightly or dim. This implies comparable immune cells can do various things, relying on whether or not that cell is from a male or a feminine.
Additional, feminine cells differ through which of their two copies of X is “turned on.” Consequently, ladies have organs with a collage, or mosaic, of immune cells that work in a different way in numerous tissues. This innate “variety” of immune cells seems to be an efficient method to push back infectious illness (ladies are higher than males at combating off pathogens equivalent to SARS-CoV-2).
However scientists have additionally discovered that having extra genes from X chromosomes might predispose ladies to autoimmune illness. This elevated X chromosome “dosage” is carefully linked to the next threat for autoimmune ailments equivalent to Sjögren’s syndrome and scleroderma.
New analysis into sex-based immune system variations can also be crucial for creating new most cancers immunotherapies, Sharma explains.
“We’re increasingly understanding how sex-based differences affect disease outcomes. When it comes to medicine, one size doesn’t fit everybody,” says Sharma, who directs LJI’s Heart for Intercourse-Primarily based Variations within the Immune System.
“This is leading to new research, particularly in the cancer field, towards precision medicine. We’re asking how a person’s individual immune system is contributing to controlling that cancer through immunotherapy.”
Saphire and Sharma additionally spotlight environmental components, equivalent to diet and chemical exposures, which will add to the complicated interaction of chromosomes and intercourse hormones. Women and men additionally seem to have some signature variations of their pores and skin and intestine microbiomes.
The researchers hope these foundational discoveries can result in medical advances for all, and so they’re working with collaborators throughout the nation to maneuver this analysis ahead. “It takes a team to translate these findings,” says Sharma.
Extra data:
Sonia Sharma et al, Intercourse variations in tissue-specific immunity and immunology, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.adx4381
Supplied by
La Jolla Institute for Immunology
Quotation:
How sex-based variations form immune responses and illness dangers (2025, August 8)
retrieved 9 August 2025
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2025-08-sex-based-differences-immune-responses.html
This doc is topic to copyright. Aside from any honest dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no
half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is supplied for data functions solely.
