{"doi":"10.3389/fimmu.2021.718359","title":"Cellular and Molecular Phenotypes of pConsensus Peptide (pCons) Induced CD8+ and CD4+ Regulatory T Cells in Lupus","abstract":"Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) is a chronic autoimmune disease with widespread inflammation, immune dysregulation, and is associated with the generation of destructive anti-DNA autoantibodies. We have shown previously the immune modulatory properties of pCons peptide in the induction of both CD4 + and CD8 + regulatory T cells which can in turn suppress development of the autoimmune disease in (NZB/NZW) F1 (BWF1) mice, an established model of lupus. In the present study, we add novel protein information and further demonstrate the molecular and cellular phenotypes of pCons-induced CD4 + and CD8 + T reg subsets. Flow cytometry analyses revealed that pCons induced CD8 + T reg cells with the following cell surface molecules: CD25 high CD28 high and low subsets (shown earlier), CD62L high , CD122 low , PD1 low , CTLA4 low , CCR7 low and 41BB high . Quantitative real-time PCR (qRT-PCR) gene expression analyses revealed that pCons-induced CD8 + T reg cells downregulated the following several genes: Regulator of G protein signaling ( RGS2), RGS16, RGS17 , BAX, GPT2, PDE3b, GADD45β and programmed cell death 1 (PD1). Further, we confirmed the down regulation of these genes by Western blot analyses at the protein level. To our translational significance, we showed herein that pCons significantly increased the percentage of CD8 + FoxP3 + T cells and further increased the mean fluorescence intensity (MFI) of FoxP3 when healthy peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) are treated with pCons (10 μg/ml, for 24-48 hours). In addition, we found that pCons reduced apoptosis in CD4 + and CD8 + T cells and B220 + B cells of BWF1 lupus mice. These data suggest that pCons stimulates cellular, immunological, and molecular changes in regulatory T cells which in turn protect against SLE autoimmunity.","journal":"Frontiers in Immunology","year":2021,"id":185341,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":9,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9533,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2021-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":673424,"name":"Bevra H. Hahn","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":650318,"name":"David S. Bischoff","orcid":"0000-0002-7575-7505","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":650317,"name":"Ram P. Singh","orcid":"0000-0002-3203-4454","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":83,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T23:48:38.805613Z","pmid":"34867947","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}