Department of General Dermatology, Medical University of Graz, Graz, Austria.
Cancer Immunol Immunother. 2014 Apr;63(4):313-9. doi: 10.1007/s00262-013-1512-9. Epub 2013 Dec 25.
The immune system is a tightly regulated and complex system. An important part of this immune regulation is the assurance of tolerance toward self-antigens to maintain immune homeostasis. However, in recent years, antigen-specific cellular immune responses toward several normal self-proteins expressed in regulatory immune cells have been reported, especially in patients with cancer. The seemingly lack of tolerance toward such proteins is interesting, as it suggests a regulatory function of self-reactive T (srT) cells, which may be important for the fine tuning of the immune system. In particular, surprising has been the description of cytotoxic srT cells that are able to eliminate normal regulatory immune cells. Such srT cells may be important as effector cells that suppress regulatory suppressor cells. The current knowledge of the nature and function of srT cells is still limited. Still, the therapeutic targeting of srT cells offers a novel approach to harness immune-regulatory networks in cancer.
免疫系统是一个高度调节和复杂的系统。这种免疫调节的一个重要部分是确保对自身抗原的耐受性，以维持免疫平衡。然而，近年来，人们已经报道了针对调节性免疫细胞中几种正常自身蛋白的抗原特异性细胞免疫反应，尤其是在癌症患者中。这种对这些蛋白似乎缺乏耐受性的现象很有趣，因为它提示了自身反应性 T（srT）细胞的调节功能，这可能对免疫系统的精细调节很重要。特别是，令人惊讶的是描述了能够消除正常调节性免疫细胞的细胞毒性 srT 细胞。这些 srT 细胞可能是作为抑制调节性抑制细胞的效应细胞很重要。目前对 srT 细胞的性质和功能的了解仍然有限。尽管如此，srT 细胞的治疗靶向为利用癌症中的免疫调节网络提供了一种新方法。
