Topic Highlight
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2015. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastroenterol. Oct 28, 2015; 21(40): 11236-11245
Published online Oct 28, 2015. doi: 10.3748/wjg.v21.i40.11236
Promises and paradoxes of regulatory T cells in inflammatory bowel disease
James D Lord
James D Lord, Translational Program Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason Mailstop, Seattle, WA 98101, United States
Author contributions: Lord JD performed all literature review and writing associated with this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: James D Lord has received research funding from Novo Nordisk, Zymogenetics and Janssen Pharmaceuticals.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: James D Lord, MD, PhD, Research Assistant Member, Translational Program Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason Mailstop, IN-RC 1201 Ninth Avenue, Seattle, WA 98101, United States. james.lord@vmmc.org
Telephone: +1-98-1012795 Fax: +1-98-1012795
Received: April 9, 2015
Peer-review started: April 9, 2015
First decision: May 18, 2015
Revised: June 2, 2015
Accepted: August 28, 2015
Article in press: August 31, 2015
Published online: October 28, 2015
Processing time: 197 Days and 10.1 Hours
Core Tip

Core tip: Regulatory T cells (Tregs) have received much interest in animal models of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but have yet to demonstrate a clear defect in human Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. This review will detail our current knowledge about this important regulatory arm of the immune system in human IBD, and discuss the potential role for Tregs as immunotherapy.