Extrathymic generation of regulatory T cells in placental mammals mitigates maternal-fetal conflict

By Robert Samstein, Steven Z. Josefowicz, Aaron Arvey, P. Treuting, Alexander Y. Rudensky. Cell, 2012

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Summary Regulatory T (Treg) cells, whose differentiation and function are controlled by X-chromosome-encoded transcription factor Foxp3, are generated in the thymus (tTreg) and extrathymically (peripheral, pTreg) and their deficiency results in fatal autoimmunity. Here we demonstrate that a Foxp3 enhancer, conserved non-coding sequence 1 (CNS1), essential for pTreg, but dispensable for tTreg cell generation, is present only in placental mammals. CNS1 is largely composed of mammalian-wide interspersed repeats (MIR) that have undergone retrotransposition during early mammalian radiation. During pregnancy pTreg cells specific to a model paternal alloantigen were generated in a CNS1-dependent manner and accumulated in the placenta. Furthermore, when mated with allogeneic, but not syngeneic males, CNS1-deficient females showed increased fetal resorption accompanied by increased immune cell infiltration and defective remodeling of spiral arteries. Our results suggest that during evolution a CNS1-dependent mechanism of extrathymic differentiation of Treg cells emerged in placental animals to enforce maternal-fetal tolerance.

Subfields: Immunology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/08a06faa6459a38b24551e248a3df9f0810c77c3