Circulating gluten-specific FOXP3

Celiac disease is a chronic immune-mediated inflammatory disorder of the gut triggered by dietary gluten. Although the effector T-cell response in patients with celiac disease has been well characterized, the role of regulatory T (Treg) cells in the loss of tolerance to gluten remains poorly understood.We sought to define whether patients with celiac disease have a dysfunction or lack of gluten-specific forkhead box protein 3 (FOXP3)Treated patients with celiac disease underwent oral wheat challenge to stimulate recirculation of gluten-specific T cells. Peripheral blood was collected before and after challenge. To comprehensively measure the gluten-specific CD4Numbers of circulating gluten-specific Treg cells and effector T cells both increased significantly after oral wheat challenge, peaking at day 6. Surprisingly, we found that approximately 80% of the ex vivo circulating gluten-specific CD4This study provides the first estimation of FOXP3