Role of double-negative regulatory T cells in long-term cardiac xenograft survival. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • A novel subset of CD3(+)CD4(-)CD8(-) (double negative; DN) regulatory T cells has recently been shown to induce donor-specific skin allograft acceptance following donor lymphocyte infusion (DLI). In this study, we investigated the effect of DLI on rat to mouse cardiac xenotransplant survival and the ability of DN T cells to regulate xenoreactive T cells. B6 mice were given either DLI from Lewis rats, a short course of depleting anti-CD4 mAb, both DLI and anti-CD4 treatment together, or left untreated. DLI alone did not prolong graft survival when compared with untreated controls. Although anti-CD4-depleting mAb alone significantly prolonged graft survival, grafts were eventually rejected by all recipients. However, the combination of DLI and anti-CD4 treatment induced permanent cardiac xenograft survival. We demonstrate that recipients given both DLI and anti-CD4 treatment had a significant increase in the total number of DN T cells in their spleens when compared with all other treatment groups. Furthermore, DN T cells harvested from the spleens of DLI plus anti-CD4-treated mice could dose-dependently inhibit the proliferation of syngeneic antidonor T cells. Suppression mediated by these DN T cells was specific for antidonor T cells as T cells stimulated by third-party Ags were not suppressed. These results demonstrate for the first time that a combination of pretransplant DLI and anti-CD4-depleting mAb can induce permanent survival of rat to mouse cardiac xenografts and that DN T regulatory cells play an important role in preventing long-term concordant xenograft rejection through the specific suppression of antidonor T cells.

publication date

  • February 15, 2003

Research

keywords

  • CD4 Antigens
  • CD8 Antigens
  • Graft Enhancement, Immunologic
  • Heart Transplantation
  • T-Lymphocyte Subsets
  • Transplantation, Heterologous

Identity

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 0037442004

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.4049/jimmunol.170.4.1846

PubMed ID

  • 12574350

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 170

issue

  • 4