Infectious tolerance: therapeutic potential

Adrian R Kendal1, Herman Waldmann

  • 1Therapeutic Immunology Group, Sir William Dunn School of Pathology, South Parks Road, Oxford, OX1 3RE, United Kingdom.

Infectious tolerance describes an in vivo process in which tolerance is passed on from one population of lymphocytes to another. In this way, short-term therapy aimed at generating infectious tolerance has the potential to achieve long term, self-perpetuating immune homeostasis in a clinical setting. In recent years, a number of differing strategies have successfully achieved tolerance in vivo. These include harnessing regulatory T cells and tolerogenic antigen presenting cells, promoting tolerogenic interactions or inhibiting activation of effector cells. Many of these are just beginning to face the harsh realities of the therapeutics industry.

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