High-throughput screening identification of novel immunomodulatory combinations for the generation of tolerogenic...

Tolerogenic Dendritic Cells (tolDCs) have an exceptional promise as a potential therapy for autoimmune disease and transplantation rejection. TolDCs are a unique phenotype of antigen presenting cells (APCs) that can influence naïve T cells into antigen specific T regulatory cells (T_regs), which can re-establish tolerance against auto/allo-antigens in the long term. Despite their promise, tolDCs have not found clinical success. Most strategies seek to generate tolDCs ex vivo by differentiating naïve dendritic cells (DCs) with immunosuppressive agents. Recently, we developed a tolDC generation strategy, which we call Push/Pull Immunomodulation (PPI). In PPI, DCs are treated with combinations of toll-like-receptor (TLR) agonists and immunomodulatory agents, which generate more robust, T_reg-inducing tolDCs than previous strategies. Here, we seek to identify more potent and clinically viable PPI formulations using data from a high-throughput screening project.

Over 40,000 combinations of pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) and immunomodulatory small molecules were screened using a modified murine macrophage line, RAW dual cells, to observe the effect of these combinations on two major immune regulatory transcription factors, NF-κB and IRF. Combinations were further screened for inflammatory cytokine activity using a human monocyte cell line, THP-1, then on murine DCs. Leading candidates were co-cultured with T cells to assess antigen specific T cell responses.

From this data, we identified 355 combinations that showed low or moderate IRF activity, low NF-κB activity, low inflammatory cytokine generation and good viability: all hallmarks of tolerogenic potential. We further screened these 355 combinations using bone marrow derived DCs (BMDCs) and identified 10 combinations that demonstrated high IL-10 (tolerogenic) and low TNF-α (inflammatory) secretion. After further optimizing these combinations, we identified two combinations that generate robust tolDCs from BMDCs ex vivo. We further show that these PPI-tolDCs can also generate antigen specific T_regs but do not increase overall T_reg populations.

These second-generation PPI formulations have significant potential to generate robust tolDCs and strong antigen specific T_regs.