Patrolling of Regulatory T Cells Is Essential for Protecting Autoimmune Exocrinopathy

. We therefore investigated the cellular mechanism for suppressive function of Treg cells via CCR7 in autoimmunity using mouse models and human samples.Treg cells was extremely decreased in the tissues from patients with Sjögren's syndrome.These results indicate that CCR7 essentially governs the patrolling functions of Treg cells by controlling the traffic to the exocrine organs for protecting autoimmunity. Characterization of this cellular mechanism could have clinical implications by supporting development of new diagnosis or treatments for the organ-specific autoimmune diseases such as Sjögren's syndrome and clarifying how the local immune system regulates autoimmunity