Soluble antigen arrays disarm antigen-specific B cells to promote lasting immune tolerance in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis.

ABSTRACT: Autoreactive lymphocytes that escape central immune tolerance may be silenced via an endogenous peripheral tolerance mechanism known as anergy. Antigen-specific therapies capable of inducing anergy may restore patients with autoimmune diseases to a healthy phenotype while avoiding deleterious side effects associated with global immunosuppression. Inducing anergy in B cells may be a particularly potent intervention, as B cells can contribute to autoimmune diseases through multiple mechanisms and offer the potential for direct antigen-specific targeting through the B cell receptor (BCR). Our previous results suggested autoreactive B cells may be silenced by multivalent 'soluble antigen arrays' (SAgAs), which are polymer conjugates displaying multiple copies of autoantigen with or without a s

SUBMITTER: Hartwell BL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6117839 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature