NEWS & VIEWS
AST ROPHYSICS
The inner lives of red giants
The natural pulse of a red-giant star provides crucial insight into what makes it shine. Observations of red giants by the
Kepler space telescope shed light on a previously untested prediction of stellar evolution theory. See Letter p.608
T R AV I S S . M E T C A L F E
J
ust as in Hollywood, the age of a star is not
always obvious if you look only at the sur-
face. During certain phases in a stars life,
its size and brightness are remarkably con-
stant, even while profound transformations
are taking place deep inside. For most of their
existence, stars shine from the energy released
by nuclear reactions that convert hydrogen
into helium, but eventually they begin to
burn the helium in their cores to synthesize
heavier elements, such as carbon and oxy-
gen. On page608 of this issue, Bedding et al.1
demonstrate a new technique for distinguish-
ing between these life stages, using continu-
ous starquakes to probe the deepest regions,
where the changes are most dramatic.
The objects examined by Bedding and col-
leagues are known as red giants, the bloated
fate of stars such as our Sun as they begin to
exhaust their primary source of energy the
hydrogen near the centre that powers nuclear
fusion. The resulting helium accumulates in
the core, forcing hydrogen in a surrounding
shell to burn more vigorously than before.
About 5 billion years from now, these processes
will gradually cause our own star to expand to
more than 100 times its present size, becoming
a red giant and destroying some of the inner
planets in the Solar System2. Stars that were
born before the Sun, as well as heavier stars
(which evolve more quickly), have already
reached this phase of stellar evolution.
Like the Sun, the surface of a red giant seems
to boil as convection brings heat up from the
interior and radiates it into the coldness of
outer space. These turbulent motions act like
continuous starquakes, creating sound waves
that travel down through the interior and
back to the surface. Some of the sounds have
just the right tone a million times lower
than the audible range for humans to set
up standing waves (known as solar-like oscil-
lations) that cause the entire star to change
its brightness regularly over hours and days,
depending on its size. Inferring the properties
of stars from these periodic brightness changes
is a technique known as asteroseismology3.
The sound waves generated near the surface
of a red giant can interact with buoyancy
waves (rather like the waves in the ocean) that
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Stellar
envelope
Sound
waves
Buoyancy
waves
Helium core
Figure 1 | Red-giant oscillations. Turbulent
motions inside a red-giant star act like continuous
starquakes, creating sound waves that travel down
through the interior and back to the surface.
Under the right conditions, these standing waves
can couple with buoyancy waves trapped inside
the helium core. Bedding et al.1 identify these
mixed oscillation modes in hundreds of red giants
observed by the Kepler space telescope, providing
unique tests of stellar evolution theory.
are trapped inside the helium core. Under the
right conditions, the two types of waves can
couple to each other, changing the regularity
of the brightness changes at the surface. These
mixed oscillation modes are much more
sensitive to structure in the core than are the
uncoupled sound waves that sample only the
stellar envelope (Fig. 1).
The innovation that allowed Bedding et al.1
to distinguish between red giants at different
life stages emerged from precise observations
by the Kepler space telescope. Launched in
March 2009, Kepler stares at a large patch of
sky near the constellation Cygnus, monitor-
ing the brightness of more than 156,000 stars
with the goal of detecting Earth-like planets.
The mission has been extremely successful at
2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
finding alien worlds4, but it is also revolution-
izing the study of stellar oscillations by pro-
viding many months of continuous data for
thousands of stars5,6. Earlier efforts to study
red giants from ground-based telescopes
were hampered by both the daily inter-
ruptions of sunlight and the limited
duration of the monitoring.
As mentioned before, the trouble
with red giants is that they all look
nearly the same on the outside,
regardless of their mass and age.
Bedding and colleagues1 sought
to determine these properties for
the hundreds of red giants observed
by the Kepler satellite, to measure
precisely when stars of a given mass
would shift from burning hydrogen in
a shell to helium in the core. The regular
pattern of standing waves is insufficient to
pinpoint which energy source makes a partic-
ular red giant shine, but the mixed oscillation
modes exhibit a unique pattern7. By decipher-
ing this pattern, Bedding etal.1 demonstrate
how the two life stages of red giants can be
separated using asteroseismology.
The life story of a red giant theoretically
depends not only on its age but also on its
mass, with stars smaller than about twice the
mass of the Sun experiencing a sudden igni-
tion known as a helium flash. The temperature
required to fuse helium is significantly higher
than that needed for hydrogen, and in low-
mass stars the helium accumulates in the core
at very high density until it reaches a critical
size and ignites almost instantaneously. In more
massive stars, the transition to helium core
burning is gradual, so the stars exhibit a wider
range of core sizes and never experience a
helium flash. Bedding and colleagues show how
these two populations can be distinguished
observationally using their oscillation modes,
providing new data to validate a previously
untested prediction of stellar evolution theory.
This extraordinary peek into the inner
lives of red giants was made possible by just
the first year of observations from the Kepler
mission, which is scheduled to operate for
at least 3.5years and might be extended by
NASA for a further 2.5 years. The picture that
emerges from asteroseismology will stead-
ily improve as the observations continue, so

we can expect even better results for the stars
examined by Bedding et al.1, as well as simi-
lar measurements for other red giants, in the
near future.
Travis S. Metcalfe is at the High Altitude
Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric
Research, Boulder, Colorado 80307-3000, USA.
e-mail: travis@ucar.edu
IMMUNO LO GY
Cross-dressers
turn on T cells
Memory T cells remember viruses from previous infections, providing immunity
by facilitating the killing of infected cells. For this, they exploit cross-dressing,
the transfer of antigens between antigen-presenting cells. See Letter p.629
J O N AT H A N W. Y E W D E L L & B R I A N P. D O L A N
A
s their name suggests, antigen-present-
ing cells flag up the presence of foreign
molecules (antigens) to killer T cells of
the immune system, triggering the appropriate
immune response. The cells generally acquire
antigens in one of two ways: by direct presenta-
tion, in which the cell itself is infected with the
antigen it presents; and by cross-presentation,
in which the presenting cell engulfs compo-
nents of an infected cell and then processes
and presents the associated antigen. A third
mechanism cross-dressing has also been
postulated13, in which an antigen-presenting
cell acquires the requisite processed anti-
gen directly from another infected antigen-
presenting cell. On page629 of this issue,
Wakim and Bevan4 report the strongest evi-
dence yet for the relevance of cross-dressing,
showing in mice that this process is required
for an effective antiviral response.
Humans possess some 100 billion versions
of killer (cytotoxic) T cells, each of which carries
a T-cell receptor on its cell membrane that
recognizes a specific set of antigens. Anti-
genic peptides of 810 residues are presented
to Tcells as complexes with MHC class I mol-
ecules of the immune system. Unnecessary
T-cell responses can gravely damage the host
by triggering autoimmune effects, so safe-
guards are in place to prevent this. The most
important safeguard is that naive Tcells
those that have not previously been exposed
to an antigen must initially be activated by
dendritic cells, a type of antigen-presenting
cell. Dendritic cells are present in immune
tissues such as the spleen and lymph nodes,
and sample the blood and lymphatic system
respectively for antigens. They are derived
from the bone marrow and specialize in
1. Bedding, T. R. et al. Nature 471, 608611 (2011).
2. Silvotti, R. et al. Nature 449, 189191 (2007).
3. Aerts, C., Christensen-Dalsgaard, J., Cunha, M. &
Kurtz, D. W. Sol. Phys. 251, 320 (2008).
4. Borucki, W. J. et al. Astrophys. J. 728, 117137
(2011).
5. Gilliland, R. et al. Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacif. 122,
131143 (2010).
6. Chaplin, W. J. et al. Science (in the press).
7. Beck, P. G. et al. Science doi:10.1126/
science.1201939 (2011).
presenting viral and tumour antigens to T cells.
Once activated, T cells replicate at an aston-
ishing speed (a 46-hour division time),
leading to a 10,000-fold increase in effector-cell
numbers within a few days. The effector
cells live for weeks, but a subset called memory
cells, which constitute only 1% of the cytotoxic
Tcells in the body, can live for decades. Having
run the gauntlet of the activation safeguards as
naive cells, memory cells safeguards for pre-
venting autoimmunity are relaxed, so they can
respond more rapidly to an infection. Wakim
and Bevan4 report that memory T cells can be
activated through cross-dressing.
If viruses infect dendritic cells, the direct
presentation of processed viral proteins can
efficiently activate T cells (Fig.1a). Many
viruses, however, infect only one or a few cell
types. They could therefore potentially avoid
recognition by not infecting dendritic cells.
To prevent this and to be able to present
tumour antigens dendritic cells use cross-
presentation, whereby they acquire antigens
from extracellular fluids through the process
of endocytosis, or from infected cells either
by engulfing them or by the diffusion of anti-
genic peptides through gap junctions formed
between the cells (Fig. 1b). Cross-presenta-
tion seems to be essential for cytotoxic T-cell
responses to many viruses5.
Cross-presentation can also occur by a
process called trogocytosis the transfer of
cell-membrane patches or individual proteins
between cells6,7 (Fig.1c). This allows antigen
presentation by acceptor dendritic cells to
occur immediately, without any processing.
Such cross-dressing has been demonstrated
in proof-of-principle experiments2,3, and
Wakim and Bevan confirm that dendritic cells
in culture transfer MHC class Iantigen pep-
tide complexes by trogocytosis. Nonetheless,
2011 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved
NEWS & VIEWS RESEARCH
a Direct presentation
Antigen
MHC
Infected dendritic cell T cell
b Cross-presentation
Infected cell
c Cross-dressing
Dendritic cell
Figure 1 | Pathways to antigen presentation.
a,Direct presentation occurs when an antigen-
presenting cell such as a dendritic cell is infected,
and displays processed antigenic peptides in
complex with MHC class I molecules on its
surface, thereby activating T cells. b, In cross-
presentation, dendritic cells acquire antigens
obtained by infected cells through endocytosis
and phagocytosis, and with or without some
processing load them onto class I molecules
for presentation to T cells. c, In a third pathway,
called cross-dressing, dendritic cells acquire
preformed MHC class I molecules in complex
with antigens from other cells by the process of
trogocytosis or through gap junctions. Wakim
and Bevan4 show that cross-dressing is used to
activate memory T cells, but not naive T cells, in
response to viral infection.
convincingly extending such findings to situ-
ations more like those encountered in vivo
has remained notoriously difficult. Wakim
and Bevan elegantly do just that using chi-
maeric mice that had received transplanted
bone marrow.
To generate the chimaeric animals, the
authors used g-irradiation to destroy short-
lived bone-marrow-derived cells including
the resident dendritic cells of the spleen and
lymph nodes in normal mice. They then
transferred bone-marrow-derived stem cells
to these animals from a variety of genetically
manipulated mice. In this way, they could dis-
tinguish dendritic cells that generate MHC
class Ipeptide complexes from dendritic
cells presenting the class Ipeptide complexes
to T cells. This revealed that cross-dressed
dendritic cells (cells that had acquired the
complexes) have a crucial role in activating
memory, but not naive, T cells.
How can this selectivity be explained? One
possibility is that memory T cells specifically
interact with a subset of dendritic cells that are
specialized for cross-dressing-based activa-
tion. Although Wakim and Bevan show that, in
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