HOME HELP FEEDBACK SUBSCRIPTIONS ARCHIVE SEARCH TABLE OF CONTENTS		QUICK SEARCH:   [advanced] Author: Keyword(s): Year:  Vol:  Page:

Published online before print January 12, 2005

This Article Full Text Full Text (PDF) All Versions of this Article: jlb.0204114v1 77/4/496    most recent Alert me when this article is cited Alert me if a correction is posted Services Similar articles in this journal Similar articles in PubMed Alert me to new issues of the journal Download to citation manager Citing Articles Citing Articles via HighWire Citing Articles via Google Scholar Google Scholar Articles by Kitaichi, N. Articles by Taylor, A. W. Search for Related Content PubMed PubMed Citation Articles by Kitaichi, N. Articles by Taylor, A. W.

(Journal of Leukocyte Biology. 2005;77:496-502.)
© 2005 by Society for Leukocyte Biology

Inducible immune regulation following autoimmune disease in the immune-privileged eye

Schepens Eye Research Institute and the Department of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts

¹ Correspondence: Schepens Eye Research Institute, 20 Staniford Street, Boston, MA 02114. E-mail: awtaylor{at}vision.eri.harvard.edu

The immune-privileged eye has the potential to induce regulatory immunity along with local mechanisms of immunosuppression. Rodent models of human autoimmune uveoretinitis [experimental autoimmune uveoretinitis (EAU)] recover without spontaneous recurrence of uveitis, which differs from uveitis in some humans. This raises the possibility that the mechanism of immune privilege in the rodent eye can reimpose itself during autoimmune uveoretinitis and re-establish tolerance to autoantigen. To investigate this possibility, we examined the spleens of EAU-recovered mice for regulatory immunity. We detected regulatory immunity when we adoptively transferred post-EAU spleen cells into other mice immunized for EAU. We could not detect this regulatory immunity in enucleated mice nor in naive mice. Moreover, unlike the mechanisms of anterior chamber-associated immune deviation, the suppression was only mediated by post-EAU CD4⁺ T cells, which required activation with autoantigen presented by post-EAU spleen antigen-presenting cells (APC). Our results demonstrate that when the immune-privileged ocular microenvironment recovers from an autoimmune response, it has influenced systemic immunity to retinal autoantigen by affecting APC and mediating induction of potential regulatory CD4⁺ T cells laying in wait in the post-EAU spleen for restimulation.

Key Words: regulatory T cells • ocular immunity

This article has been cited by other articles:

				P. B. Silver, R. K. Agarwal, S.-B. Su, I. Suffia, R. S. Grajewski, D. Luger, C.-C. Chan, R. M. Mahdi, J. M. Nickerson, and R. R. Caspi Hydrodynamic Vaccination with DNA Encoding an Immunologically Privileged Retinal Antigen Protects from Autoimmunity through Induction of Regulatory T Cells J. Immunol., October 15, 2007; 179(8): 5146 - 5158. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Tang, W. Zhu, P. B. Silver, S.-B. Su, C.-C. Chan, and R. R. Caspi Autoimmune Uveitis Elicited with Antigen-Pulsed Dendritic Cells Has a Distinct Clinical Signature and Is Driven by Unique Effector Mechanisms: Initial Encounter with Autoantigen Defines Disease Phenotype J. Immunol., May 1, 2007; 178(9): 5578 - 5587. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]

				J. Stein-Streilein and A. W. Taylor An eye's view of T regulatory cells J. Leukoc. Biol., March 1, 2007; 81(3): 593 - 598. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]