Cutting Edge: Normal Regional Lymph Node Enrichment of Antigen-Specific Regulatory T Cells with Autoimmune Disease-Suppressive Capacity

Abstract

Natural CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Treg) effectively prevent autoimmune disease development, but their role in maintaining physiological tolerance against self-Ag of internal organs is not yet defined. In this study, we quantified disease-specific Treg (DS-Treg) as Treg that preferentially suppress one autoimmune disease over another in day 3 thymectomized recipients. A striking difference was found among individual lymph nodes (LN) of normal mice; Treg from draining LN were 15–50 times more efficient than those of nondraining LN at suppressing autoimmune diseases of ovary, prostate, and lacrimal glands. The difference disappeared upon auto-Ag ablation and returned upon auto-Ag re-expression. In contrast, the CD4+CD25− effector T cells from different individual LN induced multiorgan inflammation with comparable organ distribution. We propose that peripheral tolerance for internal organs relies on the control of autoreactive effector T cells by strategic enrichment of Ag-specific Treg in the regional LN.