title: Antigen-specific therapy of rheumatoid arthritis.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Immunotherapy offers the promise of antigen-specific suppression of pathological immune responses in conditions such as autoimmunity and organ transplantation. Substantial advances have been made in recent years in terms of understanding basic immunological mechanisms of autoreactivity, as well as clinically implementing immune-based therapies that are antigen nonspecific.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To provide an integrated overview of the current state of the art in terms of antigen-specific tolerance induction, as well as to predict future directions for the field.
  
  
  METHODS
  Examples of successes and failures of antigen-specific immunotherapy were sought. Particular attention was paid to the well-established collagen II-induced model of arthritis.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Previous failures of antigen-specific immunotherapy were associated with lack of identification of clinically relevant antigens, as well as inappropriate tolerogenic methodologies. The advances in proteomics combined with novel gene-specific immune modulatory techniques place today's translational researchers in a unique position to tackle the problem of antigen-specific immunotherapeutic protocols.
authors.affiliation: University of Western Ontario, Departments of Surgery, Pathology, Microbiology & Immunology, 339 Windermere Road, University Hospital C9-136, London, Ontario, N6A 5A5, Canada.
authors.forename: Thomas E
authors.initials: TE
authors.lastname: Ichim
authors.forename: Xiufen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Motohiko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Suzuki
authors.forename: Norihiko
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Kubo
authors.forename: Xusheng
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: Lisa R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Min
authors.forename: Marianne E
authors.initials: ME
authors.lastname: Beduhn
authors.forename: Neil H
authors.initials: NH
authors.lastname: Riordan
authors.forename: Robert D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Inman
authors.forename: Wei-Ping
authors.initials: WP
authors.lastname: Min
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001169:Arthritis, Experimental / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D001172:Arthritis, Rheumatoid / Q000276:immunology / Q000628:therapy*; D001324:Autoantigens / Q000276:immunology*; D015551:Autoimmunity / Q000276:immunology*; D006801:Humans; D007167:Immunotherapy
chemical_list: D001324:Autoantigens