CAR immunotherapy in autoimmune diseases: promises and challenges.

In recent years, the use of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cells has emerged as a promising immunotherapy in multiple diseases. CAR-T cells are T cells genetically modified to express a surface receptor, known as CAR, for the targeting of cognate antigens on specific cells. The effectiveness of CAR-T cell therapy in hematologic malignancies including leukemia, myeloma, and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma has led to consider its use as a potential avenue of treatment for autoimmune diseases.

Nanoparticles loaded with IL-2 and TGF-β promote transplantation tolerance to alloantigen.

We have previously reported that nanoparticles (NPs) loaded with IL-2 and TGF-β and targeted to T cells induced polyclonal T regulatory cells (Tregs) that protected mice from graft-versus-host disease (GvHD). Here, we evaluated whether administration of these NPs during alloantigen immunization could prevent allograft rejection by converting immunogenic responses to tolerogenic ones. Using C57BL/6 mice and BALB/c mice as either donors or recipients of allogeneic splenocytes, we found that treatment with the tolerogenic NPs in both strains of mice resulted in a marked inhibition of mixed lymphocyte reaction (MLR) to donor cell alloantigen but not to third-party control mouse cells after transfer of the allogeneic cells.

Adeno-Associated Virus Type 5 Infection via PDGFRα Is Associated With Interstitial Lung Disease in Systemic Sclerosis and Generates Composite Peptides and Epitopes Recognized by the Agonistic Immunoglobulins Present in Patients With Systemic Sclerosis.

Objective: The etiopathogenesis of systemic sclerosis (SSc) is unknown. Platelet-derived growth factor receptors (PDGFRs) are overexpressed in patients with SSc. Because PDGFRα is targeted by the adeno-associated virus type 5 (AAV5), we investigated whether AAV5 forms a complex with PDGFRα exposing epitopes that may induce the immune responses to the virus-PDGFRα complex.