title: Altered tryptophan metabolism as a paradigm for good and bad aspects of immune privilege in chronic inflammatory diseases.
abstract: The term "immune privilege" was coined to describe weak immunogenicity (hypo-immunity) that manifests in some transplant settings. We extended this concept to encompass hypo-immunity that manifests at local sites of inflammation relevant to clinical diseases. Here, we focus on emerging evidence that enhanced tryptophan catabolism is a key metabolic process that promotes and sustains induced immune privilege, and discuss the implications for exploiting this knowledge to improve treatments for hypo-immune and hyper-immune syndromes using strategies to manipulate tryptophan metabolism.
authors.affiliation: Immunotherapy Center, Georgia Health Sciences University Augusta, GA, USA.
authors.forename: Lingqian
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Lei
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Huang
authors.forename: Henrique P
authors.initials: HP
authors.lastname: Lemos
authors.forename: Mario
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mautino
authors.forename: Andrew L
authors.initials: AL
authors.lastname: Mellor