This is the first installment in a group of stories on regulatory T cell function and its potential to treat cancer. This work falls within a greater series on regenerative medicine.
The purpose of these T cells is to maintain balance in the immune system. Just as a traffic officer manages vehicle flow to prevent accidents, regulatory T cells suppress other immune cells to minimize damage caused by excessive immune responses. The inhibition restrains the overactive immune system from mistakenly attacking the body’s own tissues, thereby limiting autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases—think type 1 diabetes, asthma or allergies.helper T cells or killer T cells.
To cause the desired gene knockout, the offspring receive an injection of a drug called tamoxifen to liberate the modified estrogen receptor; this, in turn, initiates enzyme activity. Once active, the enzyme recognizes the LoxP sites and snips the DNA at those points to knock out the gene of interest—here, that would be SRC-3 gene in the spleen.in mammals. One set of mice contains the tissue-specific instructions to produce Cre, an enzyme that recognizes a specific DNA sequence called LoxP.