Frontiers in Immunology (May 2012)

Altered tryptophan metabolism as a paradigm for good and bad aspects of immune privilege in chronic inflammatory diseases.

  • Lingqian eLi,
  • Lei eHuang,
  • Henrique eLemos,
  • Mario eMautino,
  • Andrew L Mellor

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fimmu.2012.00109
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3

Abstract

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The term ‘immune privilege’ was coined to describe weak immunogenicity (hypo-immunity) that manifests in some transplant settings. We extended this concept to encompass hypo-immunity that manifests at local sites of inflammation relevant to clinical diseases. Here, we focus on emerging evidence that enhanced tryptophan catabolism is a key metabolic process that promotes and sustains induced immune privilege, and discuss the implications for exploiting this knowledge to improve treatments for hypo-immune and hyper-immune syndromes using strategies to manipulate tryptophan metabolism.

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