The aim of this study has been to determine whether eye chambers constitute part of the normal migratory pathway of naive CD4+ and CD8+ T cells in mouse and if natural CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ and CD8+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells are present within these eye compartments. To this aim, the cells obtained from aqueous humor (AH) of normal mice were phenotyped in terms of the expression CD4, CD8, CD25, C...

OBJECTIVES Regulatory T cells, including CD4+CD25+Fox3+ and CD8+CD28- cells play an important role in regulating the balance between immunity and tolerance. Since multiple sclerosis is an inflammatory autoimmune disease, regulatory T cells are considered to be involved in its pathogenesis. In this study, we investigated the circulatory numbers of the two mentioned types of regulatory T cells an...

BACKGROUND Brucellosis is one of the most common chronic diseases, with widespread distribution. In spite of cell-mediated immunity (CMI) modulated mainly via activated T-helper type 1 (Th1) cells, brucellosis can advance to chronic disease in about 10-30% of cases. Regulatory T cells (Treg cells) are involved the immune response to brucellosis; however, their role, particularly in the change f...

Pigeon breeder's lung (PBL) is a type of lung inflammatory disease associated with the immune response to repeated pigeon-derived antigen exposure. The pathogenesis of PBL remains unclear. In this study, peripheral blood samples were collected from Uygur acute - and chronic-phase PBL patients and healthy subjects with pigeon contact. Foxp3+CD4+ regulatory T cell (Treg) activity in different pha...

CD4+CD25+ regulatory T cells (Treg) are instrumental in the maintenance of immunological tolerance. One critical question is whether Treg can only be generated in the thymus or can differentiate from peripheral CD4+CD25- naive T cells. In this paper, we present novel evidence that conversion of naive peripheral CD4+CD25- T cells into anergic/suppressor cells that are CD25+, CD45RB-/low and intr...

The concept of immune regulation/suppression has been well-established and, besides thymus-derived CD4+CD25+ regulatory T (TR) cells, it became clear that a variety of additional peripherally induced TR cells play vital roles in protection from many harmful immune responses including intestinal inflammation. In the present study, we have analyzed in vivo-induced Ag-specific CD4+ TR cells with r...

TGF-beta induces the conversion of CD4(+)CD25(-) T cells into CD4(+)CD25(+)Foxp3(+) regulatory T cells (Treg). Activin A is a pleiotropic TGF-beta family member and is expressed in response to inflammatory signals. In this study, we report on the effects of activin A on the conversion of CD4(+)CD25(-) T cells into Foxp3-expressing induced Treg (iTreg). Activin A was able to promote the conversi...

CD4(+)CD25(+) Tregs are important in the maintenance of immunological self tolerance and in the prevention of autoimmune diseases. As the CD4(+)CD25(+) T cell population in patients with human T cell lymphotropic virus type I-associated (HTLV-I-associated) myelopathy/tropical spastic paraparesis (HAM/TSP) has been shown to be a major reservoir for this virus, it was of interest to determine whe...

The IL-2/IL-2R interaction is important for development and peripheral homeostasis of T regulatory (Treg) cells. IL-2- and IL-2R-deficient mice are not completely devoid of Foxp3+ cells, but rather lack population of mature CD4+CD25+Foxp3high Treg cells and contain few immature CD4+CD25-Foxp3low T cells. Interestingly, common gamma chain (gammac) knockout mice have been shown to have a near com...