CTLA4 and kidney disorder: Our recent studies using CTLA-4 transgenic mice on an Apoe−/− background in which T cells constitutively express CTLA-4 demonstrated that CTLA-4 overexpression protected against the development of atherosclerosis [34], abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) [35], and kidney disease [36] by suppressing maturation of DCs and pro-inflammatory Teff immune responses.