From the article:
Estrogen hormone shows its action on cells mostly through (ERα). Researchers from Turku generated mice with ERα protein specifically deleted in T cells.
“The eureka moment of our research is that in a mouse model of human inflammatory bowel disease, transfer of naive T helper cells from ERα [estrogen receptor alpha] deficient mice did not succumb to colitis, unlike transfer from their counterparts,” Docent Zhi Chen tells.
“Furthermore, using cutting-edge technique RNA sequencing approach combined with in vitro and in vivo experiments, we discovered that ERα regulates multiple aspects of T cell function, including T cell activation, proliferation and survival,” Chen adds.
Regulatory T cells are group of T cells that help in preventing autoimmune diseases. The researchers found that ERα influences the function and differentiation of regulatory T cells.