Suppression of graft-versus-host disease by naturally occurring regulatory T cells

Studies of graft-versus-host disease after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation have shown that there are subsets of freshly isolated donor T cells that induce the disease and subsets that suppress the disease. The balance of subsets in the graft determines disease severity. The authors' work on the nature of the regulatory-suppressor T cells and their mechanisms of action is summarized in this article.