Estimation of Regulatory T-cells in Human Blood Using FOXP3 Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction

    A properly modulated immune response is essential in human homeostasis.  The immune system is also invaluable in the setting of disease, however its overall role in disease is not always well understood or characterized.  For example, the immune system plays a vital role in preventing tumor formation within the body, as well the destruction of transformed cells that remain after cancer therapy.  Often this aspect of the immune system is not acknowledged, and in some cases antagonized by the use of chemotherapeutics that suppress immune function.  The importance of immune system components also influence the success of bone marrow transplants.  In particular, regulatory T-cells help suppress graft-versus-host disease, a condition in which the incoming bone marrow cells attack the transplant recipient.

    Taken as a whole, the overall role of the immune system has often been overlooked.  More recently however, the importance of regulatory T-cells are being recognized and studies are underway to more fully characterize their roles in various disease settings.  These studies commonly assess regulatory T-cell counts via fluorescence-activated cell sorting, a costly and technical procedure that is not readily available to all laboratories.  This study serves to improve upon current methods by allowing for a quantitative method to assess regulatory T-cells in peripheral blood samples.  This is done by utilizing real-time polymerase chain reaction to measure the levels of FOXP3 mRNA, a tolerance marker that is expressed in regulatory T-cells.