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Generation of Induced Regulatory T Cells from Primary Human Naïve and Memory T Cells
14:23

Generation of Induced Regulatory T Cells from Primary Human Naïve and Memory T Cells

Published on: April 16, 2012

Cutting edge: mechanisms of IL-2-dependent maintenance of functional regulatory T cells

Luke Barron1, Hans Dooms, Katrina K Hoyer

  • 1Department of Pathology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94143-0506, USA.

Journal of Immunology (Baltimore, Md. : 1950)
|November 2, 2010
PubMed

IL-2 controls the survival of regulatory T cells (Tregs), but it is unclear whether IL-2 also directly affects Treg suppressive capacity in vivo. We have found that eliminating Bim-dependent apoptosis in IL-2- and CD25-deficient mice restored Treg numbers but failed to cure their lethal autoimmune disease, demonstrating that IL-2-dependent survival and suppressive activity can be uncoupled in Tregs. Treatment with IL-2-anti-IL-2-Ab complexes enhanced the numbers and suppressive capacity of IL-2-deprived Tregs with striking increases in CD25, CTLA-4, and CD39/CD73 expression. Although cytokine treatment induced these suppressive mechanisms in both IL-2(-/-) and IL-2(-/-)Bim(-/-) mice, it only reversed autoimmune disease in the latter. Our results suggest that successful IL-2 therapy of established autoimmune diseases will require a threshold quantity of Tregs present at the start of treatment and show that the suppressive capacity of Tregs critically depends on IL-2 even when Treg survival is independent of this cytokine.

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