Patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis have normal Treg function when cells expressing IL-7 receptor α-chain are excluded from the analysis
J. Clin. Invest. 118:10 doi:10.1172/JCI35365 [Go to this article.]

Figure 3
Frequency, proliferation, and suppressive activity of CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low cells from MS patients and healthy controls.

(A) Percentages of CD25^highCD127^low cells within the total CD4⁺ T cell population were determined by flow cytometry analysis of PBMCs. No statistical difference was found between the groups (25 patients and 20 HIs). (B) Regulatory properties of CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low cells were comparable in both HIs (n = 24) and patients (n = 25). (C) Comparison of the proliferation of CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low T cells in MS patients and HIs normalized against the proliferation of the CD4⁺CD25^– T cell subset. The proliferation of CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low T cells was minimal and approaching 0 in both patients and controls. (D) Example in 1 patient of variations of the suppression of proliferation by CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low cells in the cocultures at varying ratios of CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low to CD4⁺CD25^–. Decreasing the number of CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low T cells resulted in less suppressor activity. (E) CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low T cells from 1 patient with MS inhibited proliferation of responder T cells isolated from either the autologous individual or the healthy control. Conversely, Tregs from 1 HI were cocultured with responder T cells from the same subject or those from the MS patient. MS#19, MS patient 19; HI#18, HI subject 18. (F) Intracellular FOXP3 staining was performed on CD4⁺CD25^highCD127^low T cells in 10 patients and 9 HIs. In A, B, and F, mean values are indicated by horizontal lines.