Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee 37232, USA.
J Clin Invest. 2010 Oct;120(10):3432-4. doi: 10.1172/JCI44395. Epub 2010 Sep 27.
Suppressing unwanted immune responses without compromising host immunity against pathogens is considered the holy grail of immunology. Lack of responsiveness to self-antigens is normally maintained by multiple mechanisms, including the suppressive activities of several T cell subsets. In this issue of the JCI, Jiang and colleagues define a CD8(+) suppressor T cell subset in humans that recapitulates a regulatory pathway previously described in mice. These investigators further show that patients with type 1 diabetes have defects in their CD8(+) suppressor T cells, thus identifying these cells as potential therapeutic targets in human disease.
抑制不想要的免疫反应而不损害宿主对病原体的免疫是免疫学界的圣杯。对自身抗原无反应性通常通过多种机制维持,包括几种 T 细胞亚群的抑制活性。在本期 JCI 中,Jiang 及其同事在人类中定义了一个 CD8(+)抑制性 T 细胞亚群,该亚群再现了先前在小鼠中描述的调节途径。这些研究人员进一步表明,1 型糖尿病患者的 CD8(+)抑制性 T 细胞存在缺陷,因此将这些细胞鉴定为人类疾病的潜在治疗靶点。