Abstract
Administration of daclizumab, a humanized mAb directed against the IL-2Rα chain, strongly reduces brain inflammation in multiple sclerosis patients. Here we show that daclizumab treatment leads to only a mild functional blockade of CD4+ T cells, the major candidate in multiple sclerosis pathogenesis. Instead, daclizumab therapy was associated with a gradual decline in circulating CD4+ and CD8+ T cells and significant expansion of CD56bright natural killer (NK) cells in vivo, and this effect correlated highly with the treatment response. In vitro studies showed that NK cells inhibited T cell survival in activated peripheral blood mononuclear cell cultures by a contact-dependent mechanism. Positive correlations between expansion of CD56bright NK cells and contraction of CD4+ and CD8+ T cell numbers in individual patients in vivo provides supporting evidence for NK cell-mediated negative immunoregulation of activated T cells during daclizumab therapy. Our data support the existence of an immunoregulatory pathway wherein activated CD56 bright NK cells inhibit T cell survival. This immunoregulation has potential importance for the treatment of autoimmune diseases and transplant rejection and toward modification of tumor immunity.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 5941-5946 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America |
Volume | 103 |
Issue number | 15 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Apr 11 2006 |
Externally published | Yes |
Keywords
- CD25
- IL-2
- Immunoregulatory natural killer cells
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Genetics
- General