Abnormalities in immunoregulation are responsible for a wide variety of disorders such as autoimmune disease, chronic inflammatory diseases, and allergic diseases.
These diseases include systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, type I diabetes mellitus, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, Crohn's disease, and asthma. The defining event for induction of an immune-mediated disorder is the loss of T cell tolerance to self-antigens, which is provided by regulatory T cells.
Traditional methods for treating immune-mediated disorders involve the use of steroids or other immunosuppressive drugs, which have significant undesirable side effects. This latest invention, headed by National Institutes of Health researcher Peter Lipsky, provides methods for generating regulatory T cells by culturing CD4+CD25- T cells with autologous antigen-presenting cells (APCs) in the presence of the Th2 cytokines interleukin-4 (IL-4) and/or interleukin-13 (IL-13).
Immunotherapy via this mechanism is anticipated to have a large number of potential therapeutic applications, including: 1) treatment of autoimmune disease or inflammation; 2) prevention of graft rejection in a transplant recipient; 3) cancer treatment; and 4) diagnostic test for efficacy of an IL-4 antagonist in cancer treatment.
More info: Dr. Peter Lipsky, 301-594-0596, lipsky@mail.nih.gov.
