IFN-?– and IL-10–expressing virus epitope-specific Foxp3(+) T reg cells in the central nervous system during encephalomyelitis

Zhao, Jingxian; Zhao, Jincun; Fett, Craig; Trandem, Kathryn; Fleming, Erica; Perlman, Stanley

In summary, we demonstrate the presence of IFN--and IL-10-expressing virus-specific T reg cells in the CNS of infected mice and show that these T cells suppress proliferation of cognate epitope-specific CD4 T cells. Detection of epitopespecific T reg cells by cytokine expression may be especially useful because MHC class II/peptide tetramers are not widely available and may detect only high-affinity cells (Sabatino et al., 2011) . In addition, previous efforts using T reg cells therapeutically to diminish excessive inflammatory responses have used adoptive transfer of in vitro propagated T reg cells (Tang et al., 2004; Tarbell et al., 2004) . Identification of virus-specific T reg cells raises the possibility that an alternative therapeutic approach will be to augment expansion of T reg cells specific for a virus or pathogenic self epitope at sites of inflammation.