A peripheral circulating compartment of natural naive CD4 Tregs

CD4CD25 Tregs play a central role in the maintenance of peripheral self tolerance by keeping autoreactive T cells in check. Whereas the thymic origin of CD4CD25 Tregs, as a distinct lineage, has been inferred, understanding of their developmental pathways has remained elusive. In both mice and human...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Journal of clinical investigation Vol. 115; no. 7; pp. 1953 - 1962
Main Authors: Valmori, Danila, Merlo, Andrea, Souleimanian, Naira E, Hesdorffer, Charles S, Ayyoub, Maha
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States American Society for Clinical Investigation 01-07-2005
Subjects:
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:CD4CD25 Tregs play a central role in the maintenance of peripheral self tolerance by keeping autoreactive T cells in check. Whereas the thymic origin of CD4CD25 Tregs, as a distinct lineage, has been inferred, understanding of their developmental pathways has remained elusive. In both mice and humans, peripheral CD4CD25 Treg populations have been described as composed of antigen-experienced T cells that fail to significantly proliferate following TCR stimulation but suppress proliferation and effector functions of CD25 T cells. Here we show that analysis of CD25 expression in human circulating CD4 T lymphocytes with respect to their in vivo differentiation stages identifies a distinct subset of CD25CCR7CD62LCTLA-4FOXP3 cells contained in the CD45RA/RO naive fraction. The subset, which we have named natural naive Tregs (NnTregs), is prominent in young adults and decreases with age together with the total naive CD4 population. NnTregs are anergic following stimulation in the absence of IL-2 and exert ex vivo cell-cell contact-mediated suppressor functions. In addition, they proliferate in response to stimulation with autologous APCs, which indicates a high enrichment in T cells bearing self-reactive TCRs. The definition of this subset has important implications for the analysis of human naturally occurring Tregs and for their targeting in therapeutic immune interventions.
Bibliography:ObjectType-Article-1
SourceType-Scholarly Journals-1
ObjectType-Feature-2
content type line 23
Address correspondence to: Danila Valmori and Maha Ayyoub, Ludwig Institute Clinical Trial Center, Division of Medical Oncology, Department of Medicine, Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, 650 West 168th Street, Black Building Room 20-09, New York, New York 10032, USA. Phone: (212) 305-1962; Fax: (212) 305-6406; E-mail: dv2117@columbia.edu (D. Valmori). Phone: (212) 305-3923; Fax: (212) 305-6404; E-mail: msa2106@columbia.edu (M. Ayyoub).
ISSN:0021-9738
DOI:10.1172/jci23963