Current Advances in Follicular Regulatory T-Cell Biology

Abstract

Follicular regulatory T (T_FR) cells are a population of CD4⁺ T-cells that concomitantly express markers for regulatory T-cells and follicular helper T (T_FH) cells, and have been predominantly implicated in the regulation of humoral immunity via their suppressive functions. Rapid and robust progress has been made in the field of T_FR cell research since the discovery of this subset over a decade ago. However, there is still a significant gap in our understanding of the mechanisms underlying the phenotypic and functional heterogeneity of T_FR cells under various physiologic and pathologic settings. In this review article, we aim to highlight the most up-to-date concepts and investigations in both experimental animal models and human studies to provide a perspective on our understanding of T_FR biology with particular emphasis on these cells in the context of disease settings.