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Instability of the transcription factor Foxp3 leads to the generation of pathogenic memory T cells in vivo

Nature Immunology volume 10, pages 1000–1007 (2009)Cite this article

Abstract

Regulatory T cells (Treg cells) are central to the maintenance of immune homeostasis. However, little is known about the stability of Treg cells in vivo. In this study, we demonstrate that a substantial percentage of cells had transient or unstable expression of the transcription factor Foxp3. These 'exFoxp3' T cells had an activated-memory T cell phenotype and produced inflammatory cytokines. Moreover, exFoxp3 cell numbers were higher in inflamed tissues in autoimmune conditions. Adoptive transfer of autoreactive exFoxp3 cells led to the rapid onset of diabetes. Finally, analysis of the T cell receptor repertoire suggested that exFoxp3 cells developed from both natural and adaptive Treg cells. Thus, the generation of potentially autoreactive effector T cells as a consequence of Foxp3 instability has important implications for understanding autoimmune disease pathogenesis.

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Figure 1: Development of Foxp3+ T cells in Foxp3-GFP-Cre × R26-YFP–transgenic mice.
Figure 2: CD4+ YFP+ Foxp3− cells have a non–Treg cell surface phenotype.
Figure 3: CD4+ YFP+ Foxp3− cells have a non–Treg, memory cell surface phenotype and produce IFN-γ and IL-17.
Figure 4: The autoimmune microenvironment favors loss of Foxp3 expression.
Figure 5: Development of exFoxp3 cells from Treg cells after adoptive transfer.
Figure 6: Pathogenicity of exFoxp3 cells.
Figure 7: Development of exFoxp3 cells from both nTreg cells and aTreg cells.

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Acknowledgements

We thank C.J. McArthur, M. Lee, N. Grewal, S. Jiang, J. Beilke and S. Zhu for technical assistance; N. Martinier and D. Fuentes for animal husbandry; and A. Abbas, Q. Tang, M. Anderson, R. Locksley and members of the Bluestone laboratory for discussions and reading the manuscript. Supported by the US National Institutes of Health (P01 AI35297 and U19 AI056388 to J.A.B., and P30 DK63720 for core support), the American Diabetes Association (X.Z.), the Swiss National Science Foundation (PBBSB-118644 to L.T.J.), the Roche Research Foundation (L.T.J.), the Novartis Foundation (formerly Ciba-Geigy Jubilee Foundation; L.T.J.) and the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences (1 R25 GM56847 to C.P.).

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Author notes

  1. Marc Martínez-Llordella

    Present address: Present address: Liver Transplant Unit, Hospital Clínic Barcelona–August Pi Sunyer Institute for Biomedical Investigations, Barcelona, Spain.,

  2. Xuyu Zhou, Samantha L Bailey-Bucktrout and Lukas T Jeker: These authors contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Diabetes Center and the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco, California, USA

    Xuyu Zhou, Samantha L Bailey-Bucktrout, Lukas T Jeker, Cristina Penaranda, Meredith Ashby, Wendy Rosenthal & Jeffrey A Bluestone

  2. Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, University of Colorado Denver, Aurora, Colorado, USA

    Maki Nakayama

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Contributions

X.Z. and J.A.B. initiated the study; X.Z., S.L.B.-B. and L.T.J. designed and did experiments, analyzed data and wrote the manuscript; C.P. and M.M.-L. designed and did experiments; M.A. did bioinformatic analysis of TCR sequences with help from X.Z., S.L.B.-B. and M.N.; M.N. and W.R. did experiments; and J.A.B. designed experiments, supervised the work, analyzed data and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeffrey A Bluestone.

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Zhou, X., Bailey-Bucktrout, S., Jeker, L. et al. Instability of the transcription factor Foxp3 leads to the generation of pathogenic memory T cells in vivo. Nat Immunol 10, 1000–1007 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.1774

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