CD4+ CD25+ regulatory T cells control innate immune reactivity after injury

TJ Murphy, NN Choileain, Y Zang… - The Journal of …, 2005 - journals.aai.org
TJ Murphy, NN Choileain, Y Zang, JA Mannick, JA Lederer
The Journal of Immunology, 2005journals.aai.org
Major injury initiates a systemic inflammatory response that can be detrimental to the host.
We have recently reported that burn injury primes innate immune cells for a progressive
increase in TLR4 and TLR2 agonist-induced proinflammatory cytokine production and that
this inflammatory phenotype is exaggerated in adaptive immune system-deficient (Rag1−/−)
mice. The present study uses a series of adoptive transfer experiments to determine which
adaptive immune cell type (s) has the capacity to control innate inflammatory responses after …
Abstract
Major injury initiates a systemic inflammatory response that can be detrimental to the host. We have recently reported that burn injury primes innate immune cells for a progressive increase in TLR4 and TLR2 agonist-induced proinflammatory cytokine production and that this inflammatory phenotype is exaggerated in adaptive immune system-deficient (Rag1−/−) mice. The present study uses a series of adoptive transfer experiments to determine which adaptive immune cell type (s) has the capacity to control innate inflammatory responses after injury. We first compared the relative changes in TLR4-and TLR2-induced TNF-α, IL-1β, and IL-6 production by spleen cell populations prepared from wild-type (WT), Rag1−/−, CD4−/−, or CD8−/− mice 7 days after sham or burn injury. Our findings indicated that splenocytes prepared from burn-injured CD8−/− mice displayed TLR-induced cytokine production levels similar to those in WT mice. In contrast, spleen cells from burn-injured CD4−/− mice produced cytokines at significantly higher levels, equivalent to those in Rag1−/− mice. Moreover, reconstitution of Rag1−/− or CD4−/− mice with WT CD4+ T cells reduced postinjury cytokine production to WT levels. Additional separation of CD4+ T cells into CD4+ CD25+ and CD4+ CD25− subpopulations before their adoptive transfer into Rag1−/− mice showed that CD4+ CD25+ T cells were capable of reducing TLR-stimulated cytokine production levels to WT levels, whereas CD4+ CD25− T cells had no regulatory effect. These findings suggest a previously unsuspected role for CD4+ CD25+ T regulatory cells in controlling host inflammatory responses after injury.
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