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Suppressive activity of human regulatory T cells is maintained in the presence of TNF

Nature Medicine volume 22, pages 16–17 (2016)Cite this article

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To the Editor:

Drugs that block tumor necrosis factor (TNF) have been used with success in the treatment of different autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and psoriasis. However, some patients do not respond to these treatments, and a few develop autoimmune responses for unknown reasons. Given that regulatory T (Treg) cells expressing forkhead box P3 (FOXP3) have a major role in regulating autoimmune diseases, and that the production of TNF is increased in these diseases, the effect of TNF on Treg cells is of interest. In previous studies, we looked at different conditions both in vitro and in vivo and observed that TNF promoted proliferation of Treg cells while maintaining the cells' suppressive activity in mice1,2,3. However, experiments performed using human cells reported that TNF inhibited the suppressive activity of Treg cells in vitro, which was associated with either decreased expression or inactivation of FOXP3 (refs. 4,5,6,7). Recently, it was shown that TNF, which is produced in the synovial fluid of individuals with rheumatoid arthritis, reduced Treg cell suppressive function7.

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Figure 1: Human Treg cell suppressive activity is not impaired in the presence of TNF.

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Acknowledgements

We thank G. Marodon for helpful discussion, M. Cherai for technical support and Y. Lombardi for statistical analyses. This work was supported by the Fondation Bettencourt Schueller and by the Association de la Recherche sur la Sclérose en Plaques.

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  1. Xin Chen

    Present address: Present address: State Key Laboratory of Quality Research in Chinese Medicine, Institute of Chinese Medical Sciences, University of Macau, Macau, China.,

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sorbonne Universités, UPMC Univ Paris 06, INSERM, CNRS, Centre d'Immunologie et des Maladies Infectieuses (CIMI-Paris), 91 Bd de l'hôpital, Paris, France

    Bruno Zaragoza, Audrey Baeyens, Sylvie Gregoire, Driss Chader, Guy Gorochov, Makoto Miyara & Benoît L Salomon

  2. Basic Science Program, Leidos Biomedical Research, Inc., Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, Frederick, Maryland, USA

    Xin Chen

  3. Laboratory of Molecular Immunoregulation; Cancer Inflammation Program, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute,

    Xin Chen & Joost J Oppenheim

  4. Cancer Inflammation Program, Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute, Frederick, Maryland, USA

    Xin Chen & Joost J Oppenheim

  5. Immunology Department, Assistance Publique — Hôpitaux de Paris, Hôpital Pitié-Salpêtrière, Paris, France

    Guy Gorochov & Makoto Miyara

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  1. Bruno Zaragoza
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Contributions

B.Z., X.C., J.J.O., M.M. and B.L.S. designed and discussed the initial project; B.Z., X.C., A.B., S.G., D.C., M.M. and B.L.S. performed experiments and analyzed data; G.G. gave conceptual advice; B.Z. and B.L.S. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Benoît L Salomon.

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Zaragoza, B., Chen, X., Oppenheim, J. et al. Suppressive activity of human regulatory T cells is maintained in the presence of TNF. Nat Med 22, 16–17 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.4019

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