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Protein phosphatase 6 (Pp6) is crucial for regulatory T cell function and stability in autoimmunity

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Protein phosphatase 6 (Pp6) is crucial for regulatory T cell function and stability in autoimmunity

Wei Cai
Junxun Zhang
Hong Zhou
Xiangxiao Li
Fangzhou Lou
Yang Sun
Zhenyao Xu
Jing Bai
Qianqian Yin
Zhikai Wang
Libo Sun
Xiaojie Cai
Sibei Tang
Yue Wu
Li Fan
Hong Wang
Honglin Wang
Qun Li
Genes & Diseases第9卷, 第2期pp.562-575纸质出版 2022-03-01在线发表 2021-08-17
125500

Regulatory T (Treg) cells constitute a dynamic population that is critical in autoimmunity. Treg cell therapies for autoimmune diseases are mainly focused on enhancing their suppressive activities. However, recent studies demonstrated that certain inflammatory conditions induce Treg cell instability with diminished FoxP3 expression and convert them into pathogenic effector cells. Therefore, the identification of novel targets crucial to both Treg cell function and plasticity is of vital importance to the development of therapeutic approaches in autoimmunity. In this study, we found that conditional Pp6 knockout (cKO) in Treg cells led to spontaneous autoinflammation, immune cell activation, and diminished levels of FoxP3 in CD4+ T cells in mice. Loss of Pp6 in Treg cells exacerbated two classical mouse models of Treg related autoinflammation. Mechanistically, Pp6 deficiency increased CpG motif methylation of the FoxP3 locus by dephosphorylating Dnmt1 and enhancing Akt phosphorylation at Ser473/Thr308, leading to impaired FoxP3 expression in Treg cells. In summary, our study proposes Pp6 as a critical positive regulator of FoxP3 that acts by decreasing DNA methylation of the FoxP3 gene enhancer and inhibiting Akt signaling, thus maintaining Treg cell stability and preventing autoimmune diseases.

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AktDNA methyltransferase 1 (Dnmt1)FoxP3Protein phosphatase 6 (Pp6)Regulatory T (Treg) cellsStability