Immune tolerance induced by immune-homeostatic particles

Abstract

Autoimmune diseases, induced by dysfunction of the adaptive immune system, are the common disease categories worldwide. Recently, regulatory T cells (Tregs) enhancing therapies have been demonstrated to treat autoimmune diseases, which could induce immune tolerance to protect cells and tissues from self-attacking of the immune system. However, their widespread application is limited by complex manufacturing process, long production period and high cost. Herein, we give a perspective of immune-homeostatic particles as immune regulators to induce antigen-specific Tregs for treating autoimmune diseases. Disease-specific autoantigen is loaded into the particle to induce Tregs differentiation after release. In addition, the surface of the particles is decorated by specific ligands that could bind and trigger apoptosis of activated T cells, thereby impressing the overreacted immune system. Furthermore, liver sinusoidal endothelial cells (LSEC)-targeting particles are developed to stimulate CD4+ T cells differentiation into Tregs. We believe that the immune-homeostatic particles have great potential in autoimmune diseases treatment and are valuable in various immune-related disease treatments.

Keywords

• Autoimmune disease
• Immune tolerance
• Immune-homeostatic particle
• Regulatory T cell
• Immunomodulator