Development of Dendritic Cell-Based Immunotherapy for Autoimmunity

Abstract

Dendritic cells are professional antigen-presenting cells that maintain immune tolerance to self-antigens by deleting or controlling the pathogenicity of auto-reactive T-cells. Dendritic cell-based immunotherapies show great promise for the restoration of tolerance in autoimmune disease. Dendritic cells can be modified ex vivo to induce stable tolerogenic function and be used as cellular ‘vaccines’ or they can be targeted in vivo with sophisticated antigen delivery systems. Tolerogenic dendritic cells induce antigen-specific T-cell tolerance in vivo and have therapeutic effects in animal models of autoimmunity. The current challenge is to bring tolerogenic dendritic cell therapy to the clinic.

KEYWORDS :

• dendritic cells
• tolerance
• autoimmune disease
• cellular therapy

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The authors' work is supported by the Arthritis Research Campaign (ARC), Medical Research Council (MRC), Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the J.G.W. Patterson Foundation, and by National Institutes of Health grants AI60994, AI67541, and AI51698.