Potential of tolerogenic dendritic cells for transplantation.
Dendritic cells (DC) are professional antigen (Ag)-presenting cells considered traditionally as the passenger leukocytes that, after migration from transplanted tissues, stimulate allospecific naive T cell responses and trigger acute rejection. However, there is recent evidence that, besides their role in central T lymphocyte deletion in the thymus, DC perform a crucial function to induce/maintain peripheral T cell tolerance. This paper outlines conceptual models that try to explain how DC may induce/maintain tolerance. It also considers how such ideas have been implemented recently in an effort to generate tolerogenic DC to induce donor Ag-specific tolerance/ immunosuppression and prolonged allograft survival. These approaches include genetic engineering of donor- or recipient-derived DC to express molecules capable of promoting tolerance to alloAg.
Morelli
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AE
Department of Surgery, Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, 200 Lothrop Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. morelli@imap.pitt.edu
Hackstein
H
H
Thomson
A W
AW
D000818:Animals; D003713:Dendritic Cells / Q000276:immunology* / Q000637:transplantation*; D006801:Humans; D007108:Immune Tolerance / Q000276:immunology*