Rejection prophylaxis with interleukin-2 receptor antibody BT 563: mechanisms of action on human cells

C Herwartz1, J Steinmann, U Bethke

  • 1Institute for Immunology, Kiel University, Kiel, Germany.

We investigated the in vitro immunosuppressive effect of BT 563, a monoclonal antibody, against the alpha-chain of the human interleukin-2 (IL-2) receptor (p 55), which has been used to prevent transplant rejection in several clinical trials. We also measured the proliferative T cell alloresponse and pCTL frequencies of BT563-treated kidney transplant patients. In mixed lymphocyte cultures BT 563 caused a reduction of T cell proliferation to about 50%. This could not be reversed by the addition of exogenous IL-2. A more effective reduction (80%) was seen in the generation of cytotoxic T cells from CML cultures and at the clonal level. The specific T cell response after preincubation with antigen and BT 563 was not reduced so that BT 563 did not induce tolerance. The in vitro findings indicated that BT 563 had a significant but incomplete immunosuppressive effect. This correlated with the clinical course and ex vivo analysis of PBL from BT 563-treated patients after kidney transplantation.

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