Use of Regulatory T Cells as a Cellular Therapy for Transplant Rejection/Autoimmunity | Biomedgrid

Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Treg) are a crucial sub-population of T cells in the control of immunity and the maintenance of immunological tolerance aiding the prevention of autoimmunity. As such Treg have been proposed to be a candidate cell that could be used as cellular therapy to suppress unwanted immune responses. Indeed, there is an expanding literature on the potential use of Treg to induce or re-establish tolerance in both autoimmune diseases such as type I diabetes, arthritis and chronic inflammatory diseases as well as in preventing allograft rejection and graft versus host disease (GVHD). Furthermore, the finding that antigen specific Treg are superior to polyclonal Treg in a range of disease settings has raised the possibility that Treg based therapies may be refined and improved by genetic manipulation.