Background: New report support that the balance of Tregs need to be maintained for suppression of immune functions that lead to autoimmune-type reactions including those that may be seen in diabetes, colitis and lupus. In previous blogs, I suggest that loss of Tregs may influence the development of chemical sensitivity through the loss of Treg suppression and "loss of tolerance" and has been suggested by other authors. In the past, I have also reviewed several research studies that identify how recent findings of aberrant methylation influence environmental disease including autism, endometriosis and PTSD.
Interesting the following study by Floess shows that epigenetic modifications must occur with immune cells for cells to develop into "suppressor-type" lineages of Tregs. Therefore, alterations in methylation may negatively influence the development of Treg cells and could cause or augment environmental disease. This also provides a mechanism for what appears an inheritability of environmental disease.
Floess, S., Freyer, J., Siewert, C., Baron, U., Olek, S., Polansky, J., Schlawe, K., Chang, H.-D., Bopp, T., Schmitt, E., Klein-Hessling, S., Serfling, E., Hamann, A., and Huehn, J. (2007). Epigenetic control of the foxp3 locus in regulatory t cells. PLoS Biol, 5(2):e38+.
http://www.citeulike.org/user/HEIRS/article/1080288
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