Description:
Reference #: 01346
The University of South Carolina is offering licensing opportunities for Compositions and Methods for Inducing a T-reg Phenotype and Methods for Use for the Same
Background:
The T cell phenotype is important for controlling the immune response generate due to different stimuli. Viral infection requires the generation of killer “T cells” that can destroy infected cells. T cells are necessary to combat these infections, but the T cell response can pose problems with activated against non-pathogenic tissue, such as in autoimmune diseases or transplant rejection.
Invention Description:
This research is directed towards treating an inflammatory response that can occur with certain diseases, autoimmune disorders, and/or transplant complications (lupus, graft vs host disease, etc.). This disclosure may be used in combination with, but do not require, systemic immune suppression such as chemotherapeutic agents. A protein has been identified for the first time that is involved in the direct induction of T Regulatory Cells. T Regulatory Cell therapy is actively being pursued in clinical trials for halting transplant rejection and for autoimmune diseases.
Potential Applications:
This invention can be used to help expand the population of anti-inflammatory T regulatory cells from peripheral blood T cells for use in diseases of autoimmunity, transplant rejection, and other inflammatory diseases.
Advantages and Benefits:
This invention replaces TGFb1 (Transforming Growth Factor Beta One) for TGFb2 (Transforming Growth Factor Beta 2) for use in inducing T regulatory cells. Our results have shown that, in mice, TGFb2-induced T-regs have phenotypes that indicate they may be more suppressive, thus efficacious, than TGFb1-induced T-regs.