CD71 + VISTA + erythroid cells promote the development and function of regulatory T cells

we discoveredthat CD71 + VISTA + erythroid cells produce significantly higher levels of TGF-ß compared toCD71 + VISTA - erythroid cells. As a result, CD71 + VISTA + erythroid cells convert naïve CD4 + Tcell into induced-Tregs via TGF- ß in vitro. However, depletion of CD71 + erythroid cells had nosignificant effects on the percentage of Tregs in vivo. Surprisingly, we observed that theremaining/newly generated CD71 + erythroid cells following anti-CD71 antibody administrationexhibit a different gene expression profile evidenced by the upregulation of VISTA, TGF-ß1,TGF-ß2 and PDL-1 which may account as a compensatory mechanism for the maintenance ofTregs population.

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