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© 2019 Pellegrino et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease where autoreactive T lymphocytes destroy pancreatic beta cells. We previously reported a defect in CD4+ Tregs cell proliferation and reduced CD4+ Tregs PD-1 expression in patients. Another ‘memory-like’ regulatory subset, CD8+ Tregs, evaluated as CD8+CD25+FOXP3+, has recently raised interest for their effective suppressive activity. Different CD8+ T cell populations, their proliferation capacity and expression of PD-1 molecule were evaluated by flow-cytometer analysis in newly diagnosed, long-term Type 1 diabetes patients compared to healthy normal donors. Under basal conditions, CD8+ Tregs and CD8+ Teffs were seemingly represented among study groups while there was evidence of diminished expression of PD-1 in Teff subsets of long-term patients. After 3 days of PMA/ionomycin stimulation, patients CD8+ Tregs showed decreased percentage in respect to control group. CD8+ Teffs were instead increased in long-term diabetics versus controls. PD-1+CD8+ Tregs were represented at a much lower percentage in long-term diabetic patients, in respect to controls. Importantly, patients CD8+ Tregs and CD8+ Teffs presented a significant proliferation defect in respect to the control group. In conclusion, our study indicates that a defect of CD8+ Tregs is observed in diabetics. This subset could thus represent a novel target of immunotherapy in patients.

Details

Title
Identification and functional characterization of CD8+ T regulatory cells in type 1 diabetes patients
Author
Pellegrino, Marsha; ⨯ Antonino Crinò; Rosado, Manuela M; Alessandra Fierabracci ⨯
First page
e0210839
Section
Research Article
Publication year
2019
Publication date
Jan 2019
Publisher
Public Library of Science
e-ISSN
19326203
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2167792801
Copyright
© 2019 Pellegrino et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (the “License”), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.