Characteristics Of Treg Cells

Treg subtypes and characteristics: It has been concluded by multiple studies that Treg cells produce forkhead box protein 3 (Foxp3) at some point of their development. This protein is an important molecule in immune regulation as its presence in cells was determined to be sufficient in the suppression of proliferation and cytokine secretion by effector cells. Furthermore, a frameshift mutation in Foxp3 results in a fatal syndrome of extensive immune activation, leading to the over secretion of numerous cytokines and multi organ infiltration by inflammatory cells (Eisenstein and Williams 2009). Researching team Eisenstein and Williams divided Foxp3 expressing Tregs into two groups; ‘natural’ Treg (nTreg) cells and ‘induced’ Treg (iTreg) cells. nTreg cells are another term for CD4+ regulatory T cells and are characterized by their development in the thymus and exportation to maintain self-tolerance. This means that they are able to recognize self-peptides with low enough affinity not to be killed in the thymus during development. These cells were determined to be anergic when derived from …show more content…
First pTreg cells associated with mucosal immunity and producing and inflammatory response were found to be CD4+ Foxp3+ CD25+ (from CD25- precursors) CD45RBlow. There were also cells with the same function but were CD4+ Foxp3- CD25- CD45RBlow, more notably, they lack Foxp3 expression which, as mentioned before can be expressed or not depending on the host’s needs (Takahashi et al. 1998). Another potential distinction between thymus and periphery derived Treg cell subsets is an increased expression of Programmed death-1 (PD-1), which plays an important role in iTreg formation and function, on iTreg cells while Granzyme-B expression increased on nTreg cells (Francisco et al. 2009). Granzyme-B leads to TGF-β production by cells, which increases the production of pTregs (or