Abstract
The article gives overview of both surface and intracellular markers present on T regulatory lymphocytes. Regulatory T cells (Tregs) play a proncipal role in immune reactions including autoimmunity, transplantation tolerance, anti-infectious immunity and cancer.
Today the most widely accepted phenotype for Tregs is the coexpression of CD4, CD25 and FoxP3. But FoxP3 is an intracellular molecule, detection of which requires, fixation and permeabilization of cells and the fixed cells cannot be used in studies of Treg function.
Moreover intracellular FofP3 staining is hardly usable on a daily clinical routine basis. Therefore several attempts have been characterize TRgs according their surface molecules.
The particular molecules like CD25, CD127, CD26, CD39, CD45RA, CD49d, CD101, CD194 are described and their significance for distinguishing T regulatory lymphocytes from other T cells is discussed. Recently described surface molecule CD26 is another negative marker which seems to improve our possibilities in distinguishing this important popilation from effector T cells