| Regulatory or 'suppressor' T cells act to dampen immune responses. Suppression of certain responses is beneficial to the host, such as averting autoimmunity, whereas suppression of others may be detrimental, such as weaker immunity to infectious diseases or tumors. Although studies that discuss a population of suppressor T cells were documented in the early 1980s, it was the discovery of CD4+CD25+ T cells with regulatory properties that re-ignited the field. With the help from many experts in the field of regulatory T cells, we have assembled an annotated list of classic papers that document biology and function of these cells. We gratefully acknowledge the following individuals for their help in selecting these landmark papers: Yasmine Belkaid, Harvey Cantor, Andrew Caton, Zhibin Chen, Marcus Feuerer, Kim Hasenkrug, Diane Mathis, Linh Nguyen, Barry Rouse, Alexander Rudensky, Shimon Sakaguchi, Ronald Schwartz, Ethan Shevach, Harald von Boehmer and Herman Waldmann. |
