TY - JOUR T1 - Increased GITRL impairs the function of MDSCs and exacerbates primary Sjögren’s syndrome JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/373753 SP - 373753 AU - Jie Tian AU - Ke Rui AU - Yue Hong AU - Xiang Lin AU - Xiaohui Wang AU - Fan Xiao AU - Huaxi Xu AU - Liwei Lu AU - Shengjun Wang Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/07/21/373753.abstract N2 - It is largely unclear how MDSCs contribute to the development of primary Sjögren’s syndrome (pSS). In experimental SS (ESS) mice, MDSCs were significantly increased but exhibited gradually diminished suppressive capacity during the disease progression. The ligand for glucocorticoid-induced TNFR family-related protein (GITRL) was increased with the development of pSS, and the increased GITRL was found to down-regulate the function of MDSCs while blocking GITR signal in MDSCs significantly restored their function and ameliorated ESS progression in mice. In pSS patients, expanded MDSCs expressed lower level of arginase were observed in patients with higher SSDAI. Moreover, the increased GITRL in serum was also found to closely correlate with the aberrant function of MDSCs. Together, our studies have demonstrated a critical role of GITRL in modulating the suppressive capacity of MDSCs in pSS, which may facilitate the validation of GITRL as a therapeutic target for the treatment of pSS. ER -