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Regulatory T Cells

The IL-2 gauge

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 17, pages 662–663 (2017)Cite this article

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By studying the kinetics of T cell responses during an acute infection with influenza virus in mice, the authors noted that TFR cells (characterized as CD4+FOXP3+BCL-6+CXCR5hi) are barely detectable at the peak of the infection (days 7–15) but accumulate in the lung-draining lymph nodes during the late phase of the response (days 30–60). By contrast, conventional Treg cells rapidly expand between days 3 and 7 and T follicular helper (TFH) cells peak between days 7 and 15 and then contract between days 15 and 30.

Further characterization of the responding T cell populations revealed that Treg cells can be divided into CD25hi and CD25low subsets. The CD25lowFOXP3+ subpopulation, but not the CD25hiFOXP3+ subpopulation, shows upregulated expression of markers of TFR cells following infection and downregulated signalling through the high-affinity IL-2 receptor, which is comprised of CD25 (also known as IL-2Rα) and IL-2Rβ. Adoptive transfer experiments confirmed that the CD25hiFOXP3+ Treg cell subset gives rise to the CD25lowFOXP3+ TFR cell subset.

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References

  1. Botta, D. et al. Dynamic regulation of T follicular regulatory cell responses by interleukin 2 during influenza infection. Nat. Immunol. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ni.3837 (2017)

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  1. Lucy Bird
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Cite this article

Bird, L. The IL-2 gauge. Nat Rev Immunol 17, 662–663 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri.2017.123

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nri.2017.123

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