Regulatory T cells epigenetically reprogrammed from autoreactive effector T cells mitigate established autoimmunity
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
ORGANISM(S): Mus musculus
PROVIDER: GSE303685 | GEO | 2025/07/25
REPOSITORIES: GEO
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Project description:Studies of the monogenic autoimmune disease immunodysregulation polyendocrinopathy enteropathy X-linked syndrome (IPEX) have elucidated the essential function of the transcription factor FOXP3 and thymic-derived regulatory T cells (Tregs) in controlling peripheral tolerance. However, the presence and the source of autoreactive T cells in IPEX remain undetermined. Here, we investigated how FOXP3 deficiency affects the T cell receptor (TCR) repertoire and Treg stability in vivo and compared T cell abnormalities in patients with IPEX to those in patients with autoimmune polyendocrinopathy-candidiasis-ectodermal dystrophy syndrome (APECED). To study Tregs independently of their phenotype and to analyze T cell autoreactivity, we combined Treg-specific demethylation region analyses, single-cell multi-omic profiling, and bulk TCR sequencing. We found that patients with IPEX, unlike patients with APECED, have expanded autoreactive T cells originating from both autoreactive effector T cells (Teffs) and Tregs. In addition, a fraction of the expanded Tregs lost their phenotypic and functional markers including CD25 and often also FOXP3. Functional experiments with CRISPR/Cas9-mediated FOXP3 knock-out Treg and Tregs from patients with IPEX indicated that the patients’ Tregs gain a Th2 skewed Teff-like function, which is consistent with immune dysregulation observed in these patients. Analyses of FOXP3 mutation-carrier mothers and a patient with IPEX after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation, indicated that Tregs expressing non-mutated FOXP3 prevent the accumulation of autoreactive Teffs and unstable Tregs. Collectively, we describe Treg instability and Teff autoreactivity in patients with IPEX. These findings could be directly used for diagnostic and prognostic purposes and for monitoring the effects of immunomodulatory treatments.
2023-12-20 | GSE247274 | GEO
Project description:This is system 1, the model with linear antigen uptake by pAPCs, described in the article:
Self-tolerance and Autoimmunity in a Regulatory T Cell Model.
Alexander HK, Wahl LM.
Bull Math Biol. 2010 Mar 2.
PMID:20195912, doi:10.1007/s11538-010-9519-2;
Abstract:
The class of immunosuppressive lymphocytes known as regulatory T cells (Tregs) has been identified as a key component in preventing autoimmune diseases. Although Tregs have been incorporated previously in mathematical models of autoimmunity, we take a novel approach which emphasizes the importance of professional antigen presenting cells (pAPCs). We examine three possible mechanisms of Treg action (each in isolation) through ordinary differential equation (ODE) models. The immune response against a particular autoantigen is suppressed both by Tregs specific for that antigen and by Tregs of arbitrary specificities, through their action on either maturing or already mature pAPCs or on autoreactive effector T cells. In this deterministic approach, we find that qualitative long-term behaviour is predicted by the basic reproductive ratio R (0) for each system. When R (0) 1, this equilibrium loses its stability and a stable non-trivial equilibrium appears. We interpret the absence of self-damaging populations at the trivial equilibrium to imply a state of self-tolerance, and their presence at the non-trivial equilibrium to imply a state of chronic autoimmunity. Irrespective of mechanism, our model predicts that Tregs specific for the autoantigen in question play no role in the system's qualitative long-term behaviour, but have quantitative effects that could potentially reduce an autoimmune response to sub-clinical levels. Our results also suggest an important role for Tregs of arbitrary specificities in modulating the qualitative outcome. A stochastic treatment of the same model demonstrates that the probability of developing a chronic autoimmune response increases with the initial exposure to self antigen or autoreactive effector T cells. The three different mechanisms we consider, while leading to a number of similar predictions, also exhibit key differences in both transient dynamics (ODE approach) and the probability of chronic autoimmunity (stochastic approach).
Originally created by libAntimony v1.4 (using libSBML 3.4.1)
2024-09-02 | BIOMD0000000289 | BioModels
Project description:This is system 2, the model with Michelis Menten type antigen uptake by pAPCs, described in the article:
Self-tolerance and Autoimmunity in a Regulatory T Cell Model.
Alexander HK, Wahl LM. Bull Math Biol.
2010 Mar 2.
PMID: 20195912
, doi: 10.1007/s11538-010-9519-2
;
Abstract:
The class of immunosuppressive lymphocytes known as regulatory T cells (Tregs) has been identified as a key component in preventing autoimmune diseases. Although Tregs have been incorporated previously in mathematical models of autoimmunity, we take a novel approach which emphasizes the importance of professional antigen presenting cells (pAPCs). We examine three possible mechanisms of Treg action (each in isolation) through ordinary differential equation (ODE) models. The immune response against a particular autoantigen is suppressed both by Tregs specific for that antigen and by Tregs of arbitrary specificities, through their action on either maturing or already mature pAPCs or on autoreactive effector T cells. In this deterministic approach, we find that qualitative long-term behaviour is predicted by the basic reproductive ratio R (0) for each system. When R (0) 1, this equilibrium loses its stability and a stable non-trivial equilibrium appears. We interpret the absence of self-damaging populations at the trivial equilibrium to imply a state of self-tolerance, and their presence at the non-trivial equilibrium to imply a state of chronic autoimmunity. Irrespective of mechanism, our model predicts that Tregs specific for the autoantigen in question play no role in the system's qualitative long-term behaviour, but have quantitative effects that could potentially reduce an autoimmune response to sub-clinical levels. Our results also suggest an important role for Tregs of arbitrary specificities in modulating the qualitative outcome. A stochastic treatment of the same model demonstrates that the probability of developing a chronic autoimmune response increases with the initial exposure to self antigen or autoreactive effector T cells. The three different mechanisms we consider, while leading to a number of similar predictions, also exhibit key differences in both transient dynamics (ODE approach) and the probability of chronic autoimmunity (stochastic approach).
Originally created by libAntimony v1.4 (using libSBML 3.4.1)
2024-09-02 | BIOMD0000000290 | BioModels
Project description:Increased protein synthesis is a hallmark of CD4 effector T cell (Teff) activation. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) suppress the activation, proliferation, and subsequent effector functions of Teff cells. Several mechanisms have been proposed for Treg-mediated suppression, including release of suppressive cytokines and expression of inhibitory receptors. However, molecular mechanisms that enforce suppression on Teff cell function are unclear. Control of CD4 effector T cell activation has largely been defined at the transcriptional level, which does not reflect changes in post-transcriptional control. We Tregs suppress CD4 Teff activation through regulation of global protein synthesis prior to cell division. Using polysome profiling, we analyzed genome-wide changes in the transcriptome and translatome of activated CD4 Teff cells. We found that mRNAs encoding for the protein synthesis machinery are regulated at the level of translation in activated Teff cells, and that Tregs their translation without affecting their transcription. This translational inhibition is controlled by Treg-mediated regulation of Torc1 signaling. These data show that peripheral tolerance is enforced by Tregs through mRNA translational control in Teff cells.
2022-01-20 | GSE171789 | GEO
Project description:Regulatory T cells (Tregs) are promising cellular therapies to induce immune tolerance in organ transplantation and autoimmune disease. The success of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapy for cancer has sparked interest in using CARs to generate antigen-specific Tregs. Here, we compared CAR with endogenous T cell receptor (TCR)/CD28 activation in human Tregs. Strikingly, CAR Tregs displayed increased cytotoxicity and diminished suppression of antigen-presenting cells and effector T (Teff) cells compared with TCR/CD28 activated Tregs. RNA sequencing revealed that CAR Tregs activate Teff cell gene programs. Indeed, CAR Tregs secreted high levels of inflammatory cytokines, with a subset of FOXP3+ CAR Tregs uniquely acquiring CD40L surface expression and producing IFNγ. Interestingly, decreasing CAR antigen affinity reduced Teff cell gene expression and inflammatory cytokine production by CAR Tregs. Our findings showcase the impact of engineered receptor activation on Treg biology and support tailoring CAR constructs to Tregs for maximal therapeutic efficacy.
2024-11-30 | GSE282623 | GEO
Project description:Human FOXP3+CD25+CD4+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a dominant role in the maintenance of immune homeostasis. Several genes are known to be important for murine Tregs, but for human Tregs the genes and underlying molecular networks controlling the suppressor function still largely remain unclear. We here performed a high-time-resolution dynamic analysis of the transcriptome during the very early phase of human Treg/ CD4+ T-effector cell activation. After constructing a correlation network specific for Tregs based on these dynamic data, we described a strategy to identify key genes by directly analyzing the constructed undirected correlation network. Six out of the top 10 ranked key hubs are known to be important for Treg function or involved in autoimmune diseases. Surprisingly, PLAU (the plasminogen activator urokinase) was among the 4 new key hubs. We here show that PLAU was critical for expression regulation of FOXP3, EOS and several other important Treg genes and the suppressor function of human Tregs. Moreover, we found Plau inhibits murine Treg development and but promotes the suppressive function. Further analysis unveils that PLAU is particularly important for memory Tregs and that PLAU mediates Treg suppressor function via STAT5 and ERK signaling pathways. Our study shows the potential for identifying novel key genes for complex dynamic biological processes using a network strategy based on high-time-resolution data, and highlights a critical role of PLAU in both human and murine Tregs. The construction of a dynamic correlation network of human Tregs provides a useful resource for the understanding of Treg function and human autoimmune diseases. The high-time-resolution time-series transcriptomic data during the very early phase of human Treg/Teff activation could be generally used for further mechanistic analysis of human Treg function. These data could be further used for biological network analysis, dynamic analysis, modeling by experimental researchers, bioinformaticians, computational biologists and systems biologists. We have measured the genome-wide expression of 38,500 genes (probes) by performing a high-time-resolution time-series analysis during the activation process of human regulatory T cells /CD4+ T-effector cells at 19 time points for the first 6h with an equal interval of 20 min. We have also overexpressed the GARP gene in human effector T cells and measured the genome-scale expression for the GARP-overexpressed cells and ThGFP cells at time point 0, 100 and 360min following activation. The stimulation source used in this work is a combination of anti-CD3/-CD28 Dynal beads with IL2 100U/ml.
2012-11-23 | E-GEOD-11292 | biostudies-arrayexpress
Project description:Autoreactive CD8+ T effector (eff) cells specific to vimentin, actin cytoplasmic 1, or non-muscle myosin heavy chain 9 epitopes, evade regulatory T (Treg) cells in patients with rheumatoid arthritis undergoing worsening disease and who would become non-responders to tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α inhibitor therapy, in contrast to autoreactive CD8+ T naïve (N) cells that are efficiently controlled by Treg cells in healthy individuals or patients who would become responders. Gene expression analysis revealed that the autoreactive CD8+ TN cell subset is comprised of a heterogeneous population of cells at various stages of development in healthy individuals or patients. Mechanistically, the production of TNF-α by CD8+ TN cells and the killing activity by CD8+ Teff cells in response to the relevant self-antigens influence the endorsement or suppression of Treg function, respectively. These data provide evidence of a previously undescribed role of such mechanisms in the progression and therapy of a prototypical human autoimmune disease, such as rheumatoid arthritis.
2018-05-01 | GSE105162 | GEO
Project description:Regulatory T (Treg) cells are crucial for maintaining peripheral immune tolerance and preventing destructive autoreactive responses, but how heterogeneous Treg populations establish tolerant status remains unclear. Here, we found that Zinc finger protein 335 (Zfp335) is indispensable for the differentiation and maintenance of effector Treg (eTreg) population and immunological self-tolerance in neonates.Mice with Zfp335 deletion in Treg cells exhibit early-onset autoimmune disease with severe inflammation in multiple organs and unrestricted activation and expansion of conventional T cells.
2022-02-28 | GSE189075 | GEO
Project description:Regulatory T (Treg) cells are crucial for maintaining peripheral immune tolerance and preventing destructive autoreactive responses, but how heterogeneous Treg populations establish tolerant status remains unclear. Here, we found that Zinc finger protein 335 (Zfp335) is indispensable for the differentiation and maintenance of effector Treg (eTreg) population and immunological self-tolerance in neonates.Mice with Zfp335 deletion in Treg cells exhibit early-onset autoimmune disease with severe inflammation in multiple organs and unrestricted activation and expansion of conventional T cells.
2022-05-01 | GSE189041 | GEO
Project description:Regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a key role in suppressing systemic effector immune responses, thereby preventing autoimmune diseases but could also potentially contribute to tumor progression. As a result, there is significant interest in the clinical manipulation of Tregs. However, the mechanisms governing induced Treg (iTreg) differentiation are not fully understood. In the present study, we phenotypically profiled human iTregs during early stages of in vitro differentiation at single-cell level using multiparametric mass cytometry. A panel of 25 metal-conjugated antibodies specific to a range of markers associated with human Tregs was used to characterize these immunomodulatory cells. We found that iTregs highly express the transcription factor Foxp3 and characteristic Treg-associated surface markers (e.g. CD25, PD1, CD137, CCR4, CCR7, CXCR3, and CD103). Expression of co-inhibitory factors (e.g. TIM3, LAG3, and TIGIT) increased slightly at late stages of iTreg differentiation. Further, CD103 was selectively upregulated in the iTreg compartment while negatively regulated by Foxp3. Overall, our study highlights that during early stages of differentiation, iTregs resemble memory-like Treg features, and opens possibilities for studying molecular mechanisms of Treg function.
2025-05-07 | PXD052626 | Pride