That regulatory T cells can change their phenotypes has been shown in mouse models of atherosclerosis and other autoimmune diseases. We suspected that this phenomenon would also be true in humans. To test this hypothesis, we developed a strategy to identify human ‘exTreg’ cells and found that they express a cytotoxic transcriptome.
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References
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This is a summary of: Freuchet, A. et al. Identification of human exTreg cells as CD16+CD56+ cytotoxic CD4+ T cells. Nat. Immunol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-023-01589-9 (2023).
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Human regulatory T cells turn into cytotoxic ‘exTreg’ cells in atherosclerosis. Nat Immunol 24, 1614–1615 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-023-01629-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41590-023-01629-4
