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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2017 Aug 28.
Published in final edited form as: Discov Med. 2016 Aug;22(119):73–80.

Figure 1.

Figure 1

Treg cell mechanism of suppression in autoimmunity. (A) When activated, Treg cells are capable of driving the formation of tolerogenic APCs via the secretion of regulatory cytokines (e.g., TGF-β and IL-10). Tolerogenic APCs activate antigen-specific CD4+ T cells and skew them towards a regulatory phenotype. (B) IL-2 cytokine depletion drives the upregulation of PD-1 on activated CD8+ T cells. Upregulation of PD-L1 by tolerogenic APCs, leave CD8 T cells vulnerable to cell death in a PD-1/PDL-1 dependent manner. (C) B cells are capable of presenting antigens to Treg cells. Once activated by B cells, Tregs suppress the secretion of autoantibodies via direct killing of autoinflammatory B cells in a perforin and granzyme dependent manner.