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Updated: Jul 5, 2026

In Vitro Differentiation of Naive CD4+ T Cells into Pathogenic Th17 Cells in Mouse
Published on: October 25, 2024
Statins' immunomodulatory potential against Th17 cell-mediated autoimmune response
Xin Zhang1, Silva Markovic-Plese
1Department of Neurology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 6109 Neuroscience Research Building, 103 Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA.
Abstract:
Statins' recently discovered anti-inflammatory effects place them at the forefront of the new therapies for chronic inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Our recent study demonstrated that simvastatin exerts an independent immunomodulatory effect on the human monocytes and CD4+ cells. In addition to the statin-mediated effect on the monocyte cytokine production, which regulates Th17 cell differentiation, simvastatin directly inhibits IL-17 production in CD4+ cells, which may collectively inhibit the autoimmune response in multiple sclerosis (MS), a central nervous system (CNS) inflammatory demyelinating disease.
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