Centre de recherche en cancérologie - Lyon

The immune system has to be ignorant against the self-cells to avoid autoimmunity, but it should also be able to eliminate the self-cells that are noxious for the organism such as tumor cells.  the immune system should be tolerant to the microbiota that established symbiotic exchange with the organism. Transforming Growth Factor beta (TGF-β) is  highly conserved cytokine present in all mammals. TGF-β  has been described as key regulatory cytokine of the immune system. Interestingly, this cytokine is highly produced by the tumor micro-environment and it is known to contribute also to tumor growth. Our previous works revealed that within the immune system the target-cells of the regulatory effects of TGF-β are T lymphocytes (Immunity 2006) and that TGF-β signaling represses their activation against self-cells.  We  reported that TGF-β influences the differentiation of memory cells ( Nature Com 2014, Immunity 2012), NKT ( J. Exp Med 2009, Blood 2012). We alos revealed that TGF-β prevents from autoantibody development by regulating T follicular heper cells differentiation ( J. Clin invest 2014). Our works alos revealed a key role for TGF-β in Foxp3 regulatory T cell biology (J. Exp. Med 2009 Immunity 2015).  Our lab developed several novative tools  to study the molecular and cellular mechanisms responsible for the control of peripheral T cell tolerance to self-cells by TGF-β and analyses their effects on autoimmune diseases and tumor development.