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Prolonged islet allograft acceptance in the absence of interleukin 4 expression
P Nickerson1, X X Zheng, J Steiger
1Harvard Medical School, Department of Medicine, Beth Israel Hospital, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA.
Transplant Immunology
|March 1, 1996
Abstract:
Murine CTLA4/Fc therapy leads to permanent engraftment of islet allografts in interleukin 4 (IL-4) knockout (IL-4-/- mice. Interestingly, IL-4+/- hosts were more resistant to tolerance induction than IL-4-/- mice. An IL-2/Fc fusion protein abrogates the effect of CTLA4/Fc therapy while an IL-4/Fc fusion protein tends to inhibit rather than enhance the effect of CTLA/Fc treatment in IL-4-/- recipients. We conclude that allograft acceptance requires principally a blockade of T cell activation rather than 'immune deviation' of the T cell activation program to Th2 cytokines (i.e. IL-4).