Fig. 6

GILZ synergistically acts with TGF-beta to induce SMAD2 phosphorylation and subsequently induce FOXP3 expression [38]. FOXP3 is a transcription factor expressed in a subset of naïve CD4+ T-cells that is necessary for Treg differentiation [39, 40]. Regulatory T-cells (Treg) upregulation may serve as an intervention for posterior uveitis as a study demonstrated that Treg depletion leads to increased susceptibility of the ipsilateral retina to experimental autoimmune uveitis [41, 42]. Tregs were also shown to mediate retinal glial regeneration via production of insulin-like growth factor [43]. Pie charts adjacent to proteins represent the protein’s relative abundance in the periphery (blue), macula (orange), and fovea (gray) based on the mass spectrometry data provided by the Skeie and Mahajan [5] study