Treg cells are the immune system’s in-house combatants against pathological immune activation. Because they are vital to maintenance of peripheral tolerance, it is important to understand how they perform their functions. To this end, various mechanisms have been proposed for Treg-mediated immune inhibition. A major group of mechanisms picture Treg cells as skilled thieves stealing a plethora of molecules that would otherwise promote immune effector functions. This suggests that several million years of evolution have endowed Treg cells with efficient ways to deprive immune effectors of activating stimuli to prevent immunopathology for survival of the host. Although we are still long way from deciphering their complete set of tricks, this review will focus on the types of “crimes” committed by these master thieves in both secondary lymphoid organs and non-lymphoid tissue.

Treg 细胞是免疫系统对抗病理性免疫激活的内部战斗员。因为它们对于维持外周容忍度至关重要，所以了解它们如何执行其功能很重要。为此，针对 Treg 介导的免疫抑制提出了多种机制。一组主要的机制将 Treg 细胞描绘成熟练的小偷，窃取过多的分子，否则这些分子会促进免疫效应器功能。这表明数百万年的进化赋予了 Treg 细胞有效的方法来剥夺免疫效应器的激活刺激，以防止宿主生存的免疫病理学。虽然我们离破译他们完整的套路还有很长的路要走，