0000000000389059
AUTHOR
Francesca Ferrera
CD39 is highly involved in mediating the suppression activity of tumor-infiltrating CD8+ T regulatory lymphocytes
CD39 is an ectoenzyme, present on different immune cell subsets, which mediates immunosuppressive functions catalyzing ATP degradation. It is not known whether CD39 is expressed and implicated in the activity of CD8+ regulatory T lymphocytes (Treg). In this study, CD39 expression and function was analyzed in both CD8+ and CD4+CD25hi Treg from the peripheral blood of healthy donors as well as from tumor specimens. CD39 was found expressed by both CD8+ (from the majority of healthy donors and tumor patients) and CD4+CD25 hi Treg, and CD39 expression correlated with suppression activity mediated by CD8+ Treg. Importantly, CD39 counteraction remarkably inhibited the suppression activity of CD8+…
Residual tumor micro-foci and overwhelming regulatory T lymphocyte infiltration are the causes of bladder cancer recurrence
Bladder cancer has an unexplained, high recurrence rate. Causes of recurrence might include the presence of sporadic tumor micro-foci in the residual urothelial tissue after surgery associated with an inverted ratio between intratumoral effector and regulatory T cell subsets. Hence, surgical specimens of both tumors and autologous, macroscopically/histologically free-of-tumor tissues were collected from 28 and 20 patients affected by bladder or renal cancer, respectively. The frequencies of effector (IFNγ+ and IL17+ T cells) and regulatory (CD4+CD25hiCD127lo and CD8+CD28-CD127loCD39+ Treg) T cell subpopulations among tumor infiltrating lymphocytes were analyzed by immunofluorescence, while …