Volume 112, Issue 7 pp. 1138-1148
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Improving regulatory T cell production through mechanosensing

Lingting Shi

Lingting Shi

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA

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Jee Yoon Lim

Jee Yoon Lim

Department of Biological Sciences, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA

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Lance C. Kam

Corresponding Author

Lance C. Kam

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA

Correspondence

Lance C. Kam, 351 Engineering Terrace, Mail Code 8904, New York, NY 10027, USA.

Email: [email protected]

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First published: 07 March 2024
Citations: 2

Abstract

Induced Tregs (iTregs) have great promise in adoptive immunotherapy for treatment of autoimmune diseases. This report investigates the impacts of substrate stiffness on human Treg induction, providing a powerful yet simple approach to improving production of these cells. Conventional CD4+ human T cells were activated on materials of different elastic modulus and cultured under suppressive conditions. Enhanced Treg induction was observed on softer materials as early as 3 days following activation and persisted for multiple weeks. Substrate stiffness also affected epigenetic modification of Treg specific genes and Treg suppressive capacity. Tregs induced on substrates of an optimal stiffness balance quantity and suppressive quality.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST STATEMENT

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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