Journal Article

Helios Expression Is a Marker of T Cell Activation and Proliferation

Beier, Ulf H., Akimova, Tatiana, Wang, Liqing, Hancock, Wayne W., Levine, Matthew H.

2011

Overview

Foxp3+ T-regulatory cells (Tregs) normally serve to attenuate immune responses and are key to maintenance of immune homeostasis. Over the past decade, Treg cells have become a major focus of research for many groups, and various functional subsets have been characterized. Recently, the Ikaros family member, Helios, was reported as a marker to discriminate naturally occurring, thymic-derived Tregs from those peripherally induced from naïve CD4+ T cells. We investigated Helios expression in murine and human T cells under resting or activating conditions, using well-characterized molecules of naïve/effector/memory phenotypes, as well as a set of Treg-associated markers. We found that Helios-negative T cells are enriched for naïve T cell phenotypes and vice versa. Moreover, Helios can be induced during T cell activation and proliferation, but regresses in the same cells under resting conditions. We demonstrated comparable findings using human and murine CD4+Foxp3+ Tregs, as well as in CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. Since Helios expression is associated with T cell activation and cellular division, regardless of the cell subset involved, it does not appear suitable as a marker to distinguish natural and induced Treg cells.

• Publisher: Public Library of Science,Public Library of Science (PLoS)
• Subject: Animals / Biology / CD4 antigen / CD8 antigen / Cell activation / Cell Proliferation / Cells, Cultured / DNA-Binding Proteins - metabolism / Female / Flow Cytometry / Forkhead Transcription Factors - metabolism / Foxp3 protein / Homeostasis / Humans / Ikaros protein / Ikaros Transcription Factor - metabolism / Immune response / Immunology / Immunoregulation / Inflammatory bowel disease / Laboratories / Lymphatic system / Lymphocyte Activation - physiology / Lymphocytes / Lymphocytes T / Male / Medicine / Mice / Pathology / T cell receptors / T cells / T-Lymphocytes - metabolism / T-Lymphocytes, Regulatory - metabolism / Thymus / Transcription factors / Transcription Factors - metabolism / Transplants & implants