Therapeutic application of regulatory T cell in osteoarthritis

Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are the specific T cell population that suppress inflammatory immunity. Independent of their inhibitory activities, Tregs exhibit unique capacity to repair tissue damage. Rapid progresses are made in the processing and engineering of Tregs for clinical applications. Tregs have been used in the treatment of autoimmune diseases, transplantation rejection and graft-versus-host disease. Osteoarthritis is one of the major diseases that affect at least 600 million people worldwide. Osteoarthritis is characterized by physical erosion of cartilage, accompanied with chronic and low-grade inflammation. Tregs possess abilities to increase osteoclast differentiation and bone resorption, repair bone physical damage, and increase bone mass. Tregs are therefore candidate therapeutics for osteoarthritis for both inflammation resolution and tissue repairing. In this review, we will summarize the recent development in using Tregs in immunotherapy, and the potential of using Tregs in osteoarthritis.