Anti-CD25 treatment and FOXP3-positive regulatory T cells in heart transplantation.

The interleukin-2 receptor alpha chain (IL-2Ra, CD25) plays a major part in shaping the dynamics of T cell populations following immune activation, due to its role in T cell proliferation and survival. Strategies to blunt the effector responses in transplantation have been developed by devising pharmaceutical agents to block the IL-2 pathways. However, such strategies could adversely affect the CD25(+)FOXP3(+)T regulatory (T reg) populations which also rely on intereukin-2 signaling for survival. The present study shows that a cohort of heart allograft recipients treated with Daclizumab (a humanized anti-CD25 antibody) display FOXP3 expression patterns consistent with functional T regulatory cell populations. High levels of FOXP3 were observed to correlate with lower incidence of and recovery from acute rejection, as well as lower levels of anti-donor HLA antibody production. Therefore, T reg populations appear fully functional in patients treated with Daclizumab, even when 5 doses were administered. By comparison, patients treated with fewer doses or no Daclizumab had a higher incidence of acute rejection, antibody production and graft failure. Therefore, our data indicates that Daclizumab treatment does not interfere with the generation of regulatory T cells and has a beneficial effect on heart allograft survival.

Citation

G Vlad, E K Ho, E R Vasilescu, J Fan, Z Liu, J W Cai, Z Jin, E Burke, M Deng, M Cadeiras, R Cortesini, S Itescu, C Marboe, D Mancini, N Suciu-Foca. Anti-CD25 treatment and FOXP3-positive regulatory T cells in heart transplantation. Transplant immunology. 2007 Jul;18(1):13-21

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PMID: 17584597

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