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Updated: Feb 23, 2026

An Automated Culture System for Use in Preclinical Testing of Host-Directed Therapies for Tuberculosis
Published on: August 16, 2021
Suppressor Cell-Depleting Immunotherapy With Denileukin Diftitox is an Effective Host-Directed Therapy for
Shashank Gupta1, Laurene Cheung1, Supriya Pokkali1
1Center for Tuberculosis Research, Department of Medicine, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland.
Abstract:
Host-directed therapies that augment host immune effector mechanisms may serve as important adjunctive therapies for tuberculosis treatment. We evaluated the activity of denileukin diftitox in an acute mouse model of tuberculosis (TB) infection and analyzed the cellular composition and bacterial burden in lungs and spleens. These in vivo studies show that denileukin diftitox potentiates standard TB treatment in the mouse model, an effect which may be due to depletion of T-regulatory and myeloid-derived suppressor cells during TB infection. Our results indicate that denileukin diftitox and other suppressor cell-depleting therapies may be useful adjunctive, host-directed therapies for TB.
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