{"doi":"10.7554/elife.58463","title":"Discovery of surrogate agonists for visceral fat Treg cells that modulate metabolic indices in vivo","abstract":"T regulatory (Treg) cells play vital roles in modulating immunity and tissue homeostasis. Their actions depend on TCR recognition of peptide-MHC molecules; yet the degree of peptide specificity of Treg-cell function, and whether Treg ligands can be used to manipulate Treg cell biology are unknown. Here, we developed an A b -peptide library that enabled unbiased screening of peptides recognized by a bona fide murine Treg cell clone isolated from the visceral adipose tissue (VAT), and identified surrogate agonist peptides, with differing affinities and signaling potencies. The VAT-Treg cells expanded in vivo by one of the surrogate agonists preserved the typical VAT-Treg transcriptional programs. Immunization with this surrogate, especially when coupled with blockade of TNFα signaling, expanded VAT-Treg cells, resulting in protection from inflammation and improved metabolic indices, including promotion of insulin sensitivity. These studies suggest that antigen-specific targeting of VAT-localized Treg cells could eventually be a strategy for improving metabolic disease.","journal":"eLife","year":2020,"id":99347,"datarank":0.9288438168258529,"base_score":3.4339872044851463,"endowment":3.4339872044851463,"self_citation_contribution":0.515098080672772,"citation_network_contribution":0.41374573615308097,"self_endowment_contribution":0.515098080672772,"citer_contribution":0.41374573615308097,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":30,"citer_count":21,"citers_with_citation_signal":17,"citers_with_endowment":17,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9474,"is_data_producer":true,"deposit_databanks":{"GEO":["GSE151070","GSE150173"]},"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2020-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":488938,"name":"Chaoran Li","orcid":"0000-0003-4079-2164","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":488939,"name":"Gang Wang","orcid":"0000-0002-4066-5280","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":488940,"name":"Xinbo Yang","orcid":"0000-0002-1755-1349","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":488941,"name":"Christina S. Savvides","orcid":"0000-0002-6606-1207","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":392207,"name":"Caleb R. Glassman","orcid":"0000-0002-3342-7989","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":109712,"name":"Shen Dong","orcid":"0000-0001-8839-7046","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":488942,"name":"Eric Luxenberg","orcid":"0000-0003-4943-8727","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":488943,"name":"Leah V. Sibener","orcid":"0000-0001-9737-8517","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":17259,"name":"Michael E. Birnbaum","orcid":"0000-0002-2281-3518","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":18715,"name":"Christophe Benoıst","orcid":"0000-0003-1172-6555","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":37333,"name":"Diane Mathis","orcid":"0000-0002-6110-4626","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":218189,"name":"K. Christopher García","orcid":"0000-0001-9273-0278","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":264643,"name":"Ricardo A. Fernandes","orcid":"0000-0001-5343-3334","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":47,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-18T22:37:35.547042Z","pmid":"32773038","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":[]}