Development of screening method for drugs that improve production of regulatory T cells, and method for producing regulatory T cells using immunosuppressive macrolide antibiotics

摘要

The present invention provides a method for screening a compound capable of inducing regulatory T cells, comprising the following steps: (1) culturing a CD4 + T cell having a naive phenotype in the presence of a test compound, (2) a step of evaluating the immunosuppressive ability of the T cell isolated in step (1); (3) as a result of the evaluation in step (2), A step of obtaining the test compound as a compound capable of inducing regulatory T cells when the released T cells have immunosuppressive ability. The present invention also provides a method for producing regulatory T cells, comprising culturing CD4 + T cells having a naive phenotype in the presence of a rapamycin compound to obtain regulatory T cells. Regulatory T cells produced by this method are useful as an immunomodulator for the prevention and treatment of organ transplant rejection, allergic diseases, autoimmune diseases, graft-versus-host disease (GVHD), infertility and the like.