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* College of Pharmacy, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, and
Department of Pharmacy, SahmYook University, Seoul, South Korea
APCs, like T cells, are affected by calcineurin inhibitors. In this study, we show that calcineurin inhibitors efficiently block MHC-restricted exogenous Ag presentation in vivo. Mice were injected with clinical doses of tacrolimus (FK-506) followed by soluble OVA, and dendritic cells (DCs) were isolated from lymph nodes and spleens. The efficacy of OVA peptide presentation by DCs was evaluated using OVA-specific CD8 and CD4 T cells. Tacrolimus inhibited both class I- and class II-restricted DC presentation of OVA to T cells. Tacrolimus also inhibited both class I- and class II-restricted presentation of OVA in peritoneal macrophages isolated from mice injected with tacrolimus followed by soluble OVA. Tacrolimus-treated peritoneal macrophages, however, were able to present synthetic OVA peptide, SIINFEKL. Inclusion of cyclosporine A to biodegradable microspheres containing OVA greatly reduced their capacity to induce OVA-specific CTL response in mice. These findings provide novel insight into the mode of action of calcineurin inhibitors and have important implications for clinical immunosuppression regimens.
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1 This research was supported by Korean Science and Engineering Foundation (Grant no. R01–2004-000–10184–0) and a Korean Research Foundation Grant funded by the Korean Government (Ministry of Education and Human Resources Development; Regional Research Universities Program/Chungbuk BIT Research-oriented University Consortium).
2 Address correspondence and reprints to Dr. Chong-Kil Lee, College of Pharmacy, Chungbuk National University, Cheongju, South Korea. E-mail address: cklee{at}chungbuk.ac.kr
3 Abbreviations used in this paper: CsA, cyclosporin A; DC, dendritic cell.
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