Peder S Olofsson, Benjamin E Steinberg, Roozbeh Sobbi, Maureen A Cox, Mohamed N Ahmed, Michaela Oswald, Ferenc Szekeres, William M Hanes, Andrea Introini, Shu Fang Liu, Nichol E Holodick, Thomas L Rothstein, Cecilia Lövdahl, Sangeeta S Chavan, Huan Yang, Valentin A Pavlov, Kristina Broliden, Ulf Andersson, Betty Diamond, Edmund J Miller, Anders Arner, Peter K Gregersen, Peter H Backx, Tak W Mak, Kevin J Tracey
Blood pressure regulation is known to be maintained by a neuro-endocrine circuit, but whether immune cells contribute to blood pressure homeostasis has not been determined. We previously showed that CD4(+) T lymphocytes that express choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), which catalyzes the synthesis of the vasorelaxant acetylcholine, relay neural signals. Here we show that these CD4(+)CD44(hi)CD62L(lo) T helper cells by gene expression are a distinct T-cell population defined by ChAT (CD4 TChAT). Mice lacking ChAT expression in CD4(+) cells have elevated arterial blood pressure, compared to littermate controls...
October 2016: Nature Biotechnology