Cambridge researchers have discovered that regulatory T cells circulate throughout the body to repair tissue, paving the way for targeted therapies for a variety of diseases. Researchers at the University of Cambridge discovered that regulatory T cells, a type of white blood cell, form a single large group that constantly circulates throughout the body, searching for and repairing damaged tissue.

This overturns the traditional view that regulatory T cells exist as a large number of specialized populations restricted to specific areas of the body. This discovery has implications for the treatment of many different diseases because almost all diseases and injuries trigger the body’s immune system.

Modern anti-inflammatory drugs treat the entire body, not just the part that needs treatment. The researchers say their findings mean it is possible to turn off the body’s immune response and repair damage to any part of the body without affecting the rest. This means higher, more targeted doses of medication can be used to treat the disease, potentially providing faster results.

One healing power

“We’ve discovered new rules of the immune system. This ‘army of healers’ can do everything from repair damaged muscles, make your fat cells respond better to insulin and regrow hair follicles,” said the paper’s senior author, Professor Adrian Liston, from the Department of Pathology at the University of Cambridge. “The idea that we can use it to treat such a wide range of diseases is amazing: it has the potential to be used for almost anything,” he said.

To make this discovery, researchers analyzed regulatory T cells in 48 different tissues in the mice’s bodies. This showed that the cells were not specialized or static, but moved to where they were needed in the body. The results were published today in the journal Immunity.

“It’s hard to think of a disease, injury, or infection that doesn’t involve some kind of immune response, and our discovery really changes the way we control that response,” Liston said.

He added: “Now that we know that these regulatory T cells are present throughout the body, we can in principle initiate immunosuppressive and tissue regeneration therapies that target a single organ, which is a significant improvement over current treatments that treat paralysis of the body with a sledgehammer.”

Drug development and clinical application

Using a drug they developed, researchers showed in mice that they could recruit regulatory T cells to a specific part of the body, increase their numbers, and activate them in just one day to shut down the immune response and speed healing. an organ or tissue.

“By increasing the number of regulatory T cells in targeted areas of the body, we can help the body better repair itself or manage immune responses,” Liston said.

He added: “There are a lot of different diseases where we want to turn off the immune response and initiate healing, like autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and even many infectious diseases.”

Many of the symptoms of infections such as Covid-19 are not caused by the virus itself, but by the body’s immune system attacking the virus. When the virus reaches its peak, regulatory T cells are supposed to turn off the body’s immune response, but in some people, this process is not very effective and can cause permanent problems. The new discovery means drugs can be used to turn off the immune response in a patient’s lungs, allowing the rest of the body’s immune system to continue functioning normally.

In another example, organ transplant recipients must take immunosuppressant medications for the rest of their lives to prevent organ rejection because the body mounts a strong immune response against the transplanted organ. But this makes them very vulnerable to infections. The new discovery helps develop new drugs that not only turn off the body’s immune response to the transplanted organ, but allow the rest of the body to function normally, allowing the patient to live a normal life.

Most white blood cells attack infections in the body by triggering the immune response. Instead, regulatory T cells act as a “co-healing army” that aims to stop this immune response after it has done its job and repair the tissue damage it causes.

The researchers are now raising funds to set up a spinoff company to conduct clinical trials to test their results in humans over the next few years.