Regulatory T-cell therapy: is it ready for the clinic?

The identification of suppressor T cells as important regulators of basic processes that are designed to maintain tolerance has opened an important area of potential clinical investigation in autoimmunity, graft-versus-host disease and transplantation. However, the field has been limited by an inability to define the antigenic specificities of these cells and by the small numbers of circulating regulatory T cells. Recently, new methods for expanding polyclonal and antigen-specific regulatory T cells have emerged. This article summarizes efforts to exploit regulatory T-cell therapy for the treatment of immunological diseases and poses the question of when and where regulatory T cells will first impact on clinical diseases.