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Reply to Suppressive activity of human regulatory T cells is maintained in the presence of TNF

Nature Medicine volume 22, pages 18–19 (2016)Cite this article

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Nie, Zheng, Li and Zhang reply:

Zaragoza et al.1 report that human regulatory T (Treg) cell function is not impaired by tumor necrosis factor (TNF). TNF has previously been shown to affect human Treg function. The suppressive function of human CD4+CD25hi Treg cells was initially shown to decrease in the presence of TNF both in vitro and ex vivo2. Since then, five other independent laboratories, including our own, have reported similar findings by using the same or slightly different methodologies3,4,5,6,7. In addition to experiments in which TNF was added to co-cultures of human Treg cells and effector T (Teff) cells, other studies have been conducted in which TNF was washed away before co-culture2,3,7. The results of these studies are consistent with those involving the addition of TNF to co-cultures, and they suggest that the observed inhibition of Treg cells by TNF was not mediated indirectly through Teff cells2,3,7. The observation described in the Zaragoza et al.1 contradicts those in other published reports2,3,4,5,6,7.

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Figure 1: TNF impairs Treg cell function and has no effect on the proliferation of Teff cells.

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Acknowledgements

We thank M. Dustin and I. Goldstein for insightful communication and input.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Shanghai Institute of Immunology, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Hong Nie

  2. Xin Hua Hospital Affiliated to Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China

    Yingxia Zheng

  3. Shanghai Qianchen Biotechnologies, Ltd., Shanghai, China

    Runsheng Li

  4. BioSciKin, Nanjing, China

    Jingwu Zhang

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  1. Hong Nie
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  2. Yingxia Zheng
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Contributions

H.N., Y.Z., R.L. and J.Z. wrote the report. Y.Z. performed the experiments and analyzed the data. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jingwu Zhang.

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Nie, H., Zheng, Y., Li, R. et al. Reply to Suppressive activity of human regulatory T cells is maintained in the presence of TNF. Nat Med 22, 18–19 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.4018

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