Meng Songdong's team has made new progress in the study of autoimmune disease treatment

Autoimmune diseases are a large group of chronic inflammatory diseases, which are mainly characterized by the imbalance and abnormal activation of the immune system, and the reduction or loss of tolerance to self-antigens , resulting in immune damage and pathology of normal tissues and organs in the body .

Regulatory T cells ( Treg ) are a class of T cell subsets with immunosuppressive and regulatory effects , which can inhibit the activation, proliferation and differentiation of various immune cell subtypes, maintain the body's immune homeostasis and immune resistance to self-antigens.

Meng Songdong's team from the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences has been engaged in the study of the immunological function of heat shock protein gp96 for more than ten years .

This study clarified the mechanism of gp96 -mediated Treg activation, verified that activated Treg can effectively inhibit autoantibodies and Th cell-induced autoimmune diseases, and provided a basis for the development of drugs for the treatment of autoimmune diseases by activating Treg .

The mechanism of heat shock protein gp96 activation of Treg 

The above research results have been published in the journal iScience in December 2021.

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