Immune Gene Expression Profile of Conventional and Regulatory T cells. Homo sapiens

Understanding human regulatory T cells (Tregs) heterogeneity may identify markers of disease pathogenesis and facilitate the development of optimized cellular therapeutics. To better elucidate human Treg subsets, we conducted direct transcriptional profiling of CD4+FOXP3+Helios+ thymic-derived Treg (tTreg) and CD4+FOXP3+Helios- peripherally-induced Treg (pTreg), followed by comparison to CD4+FOXP3-Helios- T conventional (Tconv) cells. This analysis revealed that the coinhibitory receptor T-cell immunoglobulin and immunoreceptor tyrosine-based inhibitory motif domain (TIGIT) was highly expressed on tTreg. Overall design: In this study CD4 T cells were stained for the Treg-associated transcription factors FOXP3 and Helios, and subsequently FACS sorted to yield three populations: tTreg (CD4+FOXP3+Helios+), pTreg (CD4+FOXP3+Helios–) and the reference population Tconv (CD4+FOXP3–Helios–). A direct transcriptional profile was obtained from the recovered RNA from the populations defined as tTreg, pTreg, and Tconv.