Localization enhances the existence of regulatory T cells
08/7/1, 13:30 at Room 3631 (6th floor of building 3 of the Faculty of Sciences)
Our immune systems have a possibility to attack our own bodies, which is called as autoimmunity diseases, because T cells work by recognizing its target antigen but the repertoires of T cell receptors do not discriminate self antigens from foreign ones. To prevent auto immunity diseases it has been found that a particular type of T cell, called regulatory T cell (Treg), has an important role. These T cells suppress the activity of the autoreactive T cells, however, they also interrupt the normal immune reactions against foreign antigens. Furthermore, some Tregs differentiate from the precursors of conventional effector T cells (TEs) so these Tregs have the same antigen specificity with the equivalent TEs. In this study, we defined the fitness decided by the amount of Tregs and considered the optimal differentiation rate of Tregs. The result suggests that if the suppressive function of Tregs is global, our immune systems should care the more severe risk that is there should be no Tregs or no TEs but the fitness having no TEs becomes same as the one without any T cells. We can obtain the intermediate differentiation rate which maximizes the fitness only when Tregs suppress the local TE-population. In addition, the condition for coexisting TEs and Tregs is determined by the strength of suppression and the severity of the damage from autoreactive TEs.
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