Publikationsdatenbank

Selective ablation of thymic and peripheral Foxp3+ regulatory T cell development (2023)

Art

Zeitschriftenartikel / wissenschaftlicher Beitrag

Autoren

Yilmazer, Acelya

Zevla, Dimitra Maria

Malmkvist, Rikke

Rodríguez, Carlos Alejandro Bello

Undurraga, Pablo

Kirgin, Emre

Boernert, Marie

Voehringer, David

Kershaw, Olivia (WE 12)

Schlenner, Susan

Kretschmer, Karsten

Quelle

Frontiers in immunology

Bandzählung: 14

Seiten: 1 – 46

ISSN: 1664-3224

Sprache

Englisch

Verweise

URL (Volltext): https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1298938/full

DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2023.1298938

Pubmed: 38164128

Kontakt

Institut für Tierpathologie

Robert-von-Ostertag-Str. 15
14163 Berlin
+49 30 838 62450
pathologie@vetmed.fu-berlin.de

Abstract / Zusammenfassung

Foxp3+ regulatory T (Treg) cells of thymic (tTreg) and peripheral (pTreg) developmental origin are thought to synergistically act to ensure immune homeostasis, with self-reactive tTreg cells primarily constraining autoimmune responses. Here we exploited a Foxp3-dependent reporter with thymus-specific GFP/Cre activity to selectively ablate either tTreg (ΔtTreg) or pTreg (ΔpTreg) cell development, while sparing the respective sister populations. We found that, in contrast to the tTreg cell behavior in ΔpTreg mice, pTreg cells acquired a highly activated suppressor phenotype and replenished the Treg cell pool of ΔtTreg mice on a non-autoimmune C57BL/6 background. Despite the absence of tTreg cells, pTreg cells prevented early mortality and fatal autoimmunity commonly observed in Foxp3-deficient models of complete Treg cell deficiency, and largely maintained immune tolerance even as the ΔtTreg mice aged. However, only two generations of backcrossing to the autoimmune-prone non-obese diabetic (NOD) background were sufficient to cause severe disease lethality associated with different, partially overlapping patterns of organ-specific autoimmunity. This included a particularly severe form of autoimmune diabetes characterized by an early onset and abrogation of the sex bias usually observed in the NOD mouse model of human type 1 diabetes. Genetic association studies further allowed us to define a small set of autoimmune risk loci sufficient to promote β cell autoimmunity, including genes known to impinge on Treg cell biology. Overall, these studies show an unexpectedly high functional adaptability of pTreg cells, emphasizing their important role as mediators of bystander effects to ensure self-tolerance.