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Departments of
*
Microbiology and
Anatomy, Saga Medical School, Saga, Japan; and
Department of Environmental Toxicology, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Teikyo University, Kanagawa, Japan
| Abstract |
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and IL-2 production. Thus, the
neutralization of IL-4 by an anti-IL-4 Ab appears to be required
for the induction of AA in mice. | Introduction |
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IL-4 was originally identified as a mediator that induced the
proliferation of murine B lymphocytes (6). Cellular analysis revealed
that the source of the cytokine was Th2 cells, a subset of
CD4+ T cells (7). IL-4 was shown to be crucial in Th2
responses, including IgE Ab production (8). In contrast, the cytokine
inhibits Th1 responses, including IFN-
secretion and DTH (9, 10).
More recently, it was demonstrated that the neutralization of IL-4 by
Abs against IL-4 suppressed Th2 responses but augmented Th1
responses (11, 12).
The above results indicate that treatment with an anti-IL-4 Ab should increase Th1 responses to MT following immunization with the Ag that is important in the induction of AA in rats. In the present study, we show that mice immunized with MT followed by treatment with a mAb against IL-4 (11B11 mAb) (13) developed chronic erosive arthritis and that this arthritis was passively transferred to normal syngeneic mice with lymphoid cells from the arthritic animals. These findings suggest that AA could be induced in mice in which IL-4 is neutralized with an anti-IL-4 Ab.
| Materials and Methods |
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Female DBA/1J mice, 8 to 9 wk of age, were used in all experiments. The mice were bred in the animal breeding unit of Saga Medical School, Saga, Japan. They were maintained in a temperature- and light-controlled environment with free acess to standard rodent chow and water.
Induction of adjuvant arthritis (AA)
Mice were injected s.c. at the base of the tail with 50 µl of IFA (Difco Laboratories, Detroit, MI) containing 10 mg/ml of finely ground heat-killed M. tuberculosis (MT) (Difco Laboratories). To evaluate the severity of arthritis, the thickness of the right and left footpads was measured using a dial gauge caliper calibrated with 0.01 mm graduations (Ozaki MFG, Tokyo, Japan) before and after induction of arthritis, and the mean of the increases in thickness of both footpads was calculated. The lesions of the four paws were also each graded from 0 to 3 as described elsewhere (14).
Treatment with a mAb against IL-4
The cell line of a rat IgG1 mAb that neutralizes murine IL-4 (11B11 mAb) was kindly provided by the Department of Immunology, Saga Medical School. 11B11 mAb was precipitated by ammonium sulfate from ascitic fluid of SCID mice inoculated with the cells and purified using a protein G Sepharose 4FF column (Pharmacia Biotech, Tokyo, Japan), dialyzed with PBS, and filtered. The preparation and characterization of 11B11 mAb have been described previously (13). Two milligrams of 11B11 mAb dissolved in 0.5 ml of PBS was injected i.p. once daily over a period of 10 days, commencing on the day of immunization with MT. As treatment controls, 0.5 ml of PBS only and 0.5 ml of PBS containing 2 mg of normal rat serum IgG purified as described above were given.
Histology
Mice were killed on days 4 and 30 after onset of arthritis. Hind paws were amputated, fixed in 4% formalin, and decalcified in a solution of 3.1% HCl, 5% formic acid, and 7% aluminum chloride. The tissues were embedded in paraffin, sectioned at 4 µm, and stained with hematoxylin and eosin.
Passive transfer of AA
For passive transfer of AA with lymphoid cells from mice treated with 11B11 mAb, the method of Taurog et al. (15) was used. Briefly, mice were immunized with MT followed by the treatment with 11B11 mAb as described above. Twelve days later, lymph nodes and spleens were removed, and single cell suspensions prepared from the lymphoid tissues were cultured in RPMI 1640 medium (Flow Laboratories, McLean, VA) with Con A (3 µg/2 x 106 cells/ml). RPMI contained 1 mM glutamine, 100 U/ml penicillin, 100 µg/ml streptomycin, 5 x 10-5 M 2-ME, and 1% heat-inactivated autologous mouse serum. After 2 days culture, the cells were washed twice, and 2 x 108 cells in 0.5 ml of PBS were injected i.v. into the tail of normal recipient mice. To examine whether arthritis is passively transferred with serum, 1 ml of serum from MT-immunized and 11B11 mAb-treated mice was injected i.v. into normal recipient animals.
DTH measurement
On day 12 after immunization with MT, 50 µl of 0.9% NaCl containing 50 µg/ml of purified protein derivative (PPD, Japan BCG, Tokyo, Japan) was injected s.c. into the right footpad. As a vehicle control, 50 µl of 0.9% NaCl alone was injected into the left footpad. The thickness of the right and left footpad was measured using a dial gauge caliper as described above, immediately before and 48 h after challenge injection. The increase in left thickness was subtracted from the increase in right footpad thickness to give the value due to the specific response to Ag. In unsensitized mice, responses to PPD and 0.9% NaCl were essentially equivalent.
Proliferation assay
Inguinal lymph nodes were removed on day 14 after immunization with MT, and single cell suspensions were prepared. A total of 5 x 105 cells in 100 µl of RPMI 1640 were added to each microwell followed by the addition of 100 µl of varying doses of PPD. The cells were cultured for 72 h. Each well was pulsed with 0.5 µCi of tritiated thymidine, and the cells were cultured for another 16 h. The cultures were then harvested onto fiberglass filters using a multiharvester and counted using standard liquid scintillation techniques. Results, expressed in cpm, are average of quadruplicate cultures of cells pooled from four mice.
Cytokine measurement
Single cell suspensions from inguinal lymph nodes were prepared
as described above and resuspended at a final concentration of 5
x 106 cells/ml and cultured in 1-ml aliquots in 24-well
tissue culture plates either in medium alone or with 20 µg/ml PPD.
Supernatants were harvested after 48 h and stored at -70°C
until assayed. Cytokine production was quantified using sandwich ELISA
techniques (16). Briefly, 96-well microtiter plates were coated
overnight at 4°C with 100 µl of 0.1 M NaHCO3 buffer
containing Abs (4 µg/ml) against IL-2, IL-4, and IFN-
(PharMingen,
San Diego, CA). The plates were blocked by incubation with 100 µl of
PBS containing 1% OVA at 37°C for 1 h. After blocking, the
plates were washed three times, and samples or standards (recombinant
murine IL-2, IL-4, and IFN-
; PharMingen) were added to each well in
a volume of 100 µl and incubated at 37°C for 1 h. The plates
were washed three times, and 100 µl/well biotinylated anti-murine
IL-2, IL-4, and IFN-
(2 µg/ml) Abs (PharMingen) diluted in PBS/1%
OVA was added. After incubation at 37°C for 1 h, the plates were
washed three times, and 100 µl/well of streptavidin-alkaline
phosphatase (PharMingen) was added at 2 µg/ml. The plates were washed
before 100 µl of p-nitrophenylphosphate was added to each
well. The plates were then read at 405 nm using an automatic microplate
reader. Cytokine levels were determined with reference to a standard
curve constructed using serial dilutions of the standard cytokines, and
results are expressed in pg/ml.
| Results |
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None of 12 mice immunized with MT followed by treatment with
either PBS or normal rat IgG developed arthritis at least up to day 120
(Table I
). On the other hand, 2 of 12
mice (17%) treated once daily with 11B11 mAb over a period of 10 days,
commencing on the day of immunization with MT, showed signs of
arthritis on day 19. The incidences of arthritis in these animals on
days 22, 25, and 28 (to 120) were 58, 75, and 83%, respectively. The
joint inflammation reached a peak on day 28 and thereafter decreased
gradually, as shown in Fig. 1
,
A and B. On day 40, ankylosis of the ankle joints
was observed. The average number of limbs affected per mouse was 2.3.
Treatment with 11B11 mAb by itself without immunization with MT induced
no joint inflammation (data not shown).
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Histologic changes in tarsal joints of mice with AA were examined.
On 4 days after onset of arthritis, there was a marked edema of
synovial tissues with infiltration of many inflammatory cells,
including neutrophils (Fig. 2
B), that was absent before
onset of joint inflammation (Fig. 2
A). On day 30,
proliferation of synovium, cell infiltration in which mononuclear cells
predominated, and destruction of cartilage and subchondral bone were
observed (Fig. 2
C).
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Next, we investigated whether AA was passively transferred to
normal recipient mice with lymphoid cells from mice with the disease.
When normal recipients were injected i.v. with spleen and lymph node
cells from mice immunized with MT followed by treatment with 11B11 mAb,
7 of 8 mice (88%) showed signs of arthritis on day 6 after the
injection, and the joint inflammation reached a peak on day 10 (Fig. 3
). The average number of limbs affected
per mouse was 1.8. Injection into normal recipient mice of lymphoid
cells from mice immunized with MT and treated with PBS failed to induce
arthritis throughout the experiment. No joint inflammation was observed
in recipient mice injected i.v. with sera from mice immunized
with MT and treated with the anti-IL-4 mAb.
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DTH reactions to PPD were measured to learn whether treatment with
11B11 mAb affected this type of Th1 responses. As shown in Fig. 4
, mice treated with the anti-IL-4
mAb showed significantly increased DTH responses to PPD in the footpad,
compared with those injected with either PBS or normal rat IgG.
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To examine whether proliferative responses to PPD are modulated by
treatment with 11B11 mAb, lymph node cells from mice immunized with MT
and injected with the anti-IL-4 Ab were cultured with PPD. As shown
in Table II
, the proliferation to PPD of
lymphoid cells from 11B11 mAb-treated mice was much greater than that
from PBS- or rat IgG-treated animals.
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The effects of 11B11 mAb on secretion of the Th2 cytokine IL-4 and
the Th1 cytokines IFN-
and IL-2 were examined. The results showed
that secretion of IL-4 by lymph node cells in mice treated with 11B11
mAb was markedly reduced compared with that in those treated with PBS
or rat IgG (Table III
). In contrast,
there was greater production of IFN-
and IL-2 in mice treated with
the anti-IL-4 Ab than in those injected with PBS or rat IgG.
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To investigate whether other strains of mice also develop
arthritis following treatment with 11B11 mAb, BALB/c and C57BL/6 mice
were used. As shown in Table IV
, both
strains of mice treated with the mAb but not with PBS developed
arthritis. The incidence and the severity of joint inflammation were
similar to those in DBA/1J mice.
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| Discussion |
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Some histologic features of AA in mice resembled those in rats. They include marked edema of synovial tissues with infiltration of many inflammatory cells, including polymorphonuclear cells in the early phase of joint inflammation. In the chronic inflammatory phase, synovial hyperplasia and destruction of cartilage and bone were observed. However, AA in mice was obviously different in its severity from that in rats. In the rat AA, markedly pronounced proliferation of synovium that often leads to granuloma formation and almost complete destruction of cartilage and bone are observed (17, 18, 19, 20), while such severely inflamed joint inflammation was not seen in the mouse AA. Furthermore, in the rats, inflammatory lesions are not restricted to the joints but spread throughout the body (17, 18). For instance, ears and tails are also often inflamed in rats with AA, while these appeared to be intact in mice with AA.
AA in mice was passively transferred to normal syngeneic recipient animals with lymph node and spleen cells from mice immunized with MT and treated with 11B11 mAb, suggesting that cellular immune responses appear to be involved in the progression of the joint disease. The role of T cells in AA in rats was also previously demonstrated by the experiment of the successful passive transfer of arthritis to normal recipients with MT-immunized lymphoid cells (4, 5). The direct role of humoral responses in the progression of AA in mice appears to be unlikely since the attempt to transfer AA to normal syngeneic animals with sera from MT-immunized and 11B11 mAb-treated mice was unsuccessful. Similarly, it was previously shown that normal recipient rats injected with sera from MT-immunized rats developed no joint inflammation (21).
As mentioned above, induction of AA in mice has been shown to be difficult. However, there is one report by Knight et al. demonstrating that BALB/c, SJL, CBA/c, or C57BL/10 mice developed arthritis approximately 2 mo after injection of CFA containing MT, although they did not show whether the joint inflammation was passively transferred with T cells from the arthritic animals (22). Since AA in rats normally develops 10 to 15 days after immunization with MT, they concluded that the lack of success in the induction of AA in mice shown previously by Pearson (1) and Gelenn et al. (3) was due to the failure to wait for longer time periods following immunization with MT and that the induction of AA was not restricted to rats. In our studies, immunization with MT itself induced no arthritis in DBA/1J mice up to 120 days after the immunization. The neutralization of IL-4 with the anti-IL-4 Ab was required for the induction of AA in the animals. In addition, mice immunized with MT followed by treatment with 11B11 mAb showed signs of arthritis on day 19, and the joint inflammation reached a peak on day 28. Furthermore, the present study, as well as the studies by Knight et al. (22) showing the induction of AA in different strains of mice, suggests that the MHC restriction to AA susceptibility appears to be broad. AA in the rat was also shown to be induced in the different strains (23).
The precise mechanism by which AA developed in mice following treatment
with 11B11 mAb remains unclear at present. However, IL-4 is known to
play a role in Th2 responses, including IgE production, while the
cytokine inhibits Th1 responses, including IFN-
secretion and DTH
(8, 9, 10). Conversely, IFN-
enhances Th1 responses but suppresses Th2
responses (24, 25). An anti-IL-4 Ab has been shown to inhibit Th2
responses (11, 12) while the Abs augment Th1 responses that play a
critical role in DTH (26, 27). In our experiments, treatment with 11B11
mAb also inhibited IL-4 secretion while the mAb enhanced IFN-
production and footpad DTH to PPD. Secretion of IL-2 and proliferative
responses to PPD were also increased by the anti-IL-4 mAb
treatment. These results appear to indicate that the neutralization of
IL-4 by 11B11 mAb resulted in a marked increase in Th1 responses to MT
that was important in the induction of AA. Therefore, AA in mice may be
due to the shift toward Th1 responses to MT following the anti-IL-4
mAb treatment.
Although the etiology of human RA is still obscure, it was previously
shown that patients with RA had elevated serum levels of
antimycobacterial Abs (28, 29). There were also studies demonstrating
that T cells from RA patients responded to an MT Ag fraction (30, 31)
that contained an epitope recognized by rat arthritogenic T cell clones
(32). Although these results suggest that immune responses to MT may at
least in part contribute to the progression of RA, it appears to be
unlikely that mycobacterial Ags are directly involved in the
pathogenesis of the disease. For instance, it is not common that
patients recovered from tuberculosis develop chronic erosive joint
inflammation as seen in RA, although it was previously reported that
0.5 to 1% of patients with bladder cancer treated with bacille
Calmette-Guérin (BCG) developed arthritis that was
resolved spontaneously within 14 days (33, 34). Thus, humans appear to
be resistant rather than susceptible to the development of chronic
arthritis following sensitization with mycobacteria. However, it may
not be denied that a shift toward Th1 responses to MT might lead to the
development of arthritis in humans, as seen in mice. It is of note that
RA has been shown to be a Th1-dominant disease since there is a
significant increase in the secretion of IFN-
, while the production
of IL-4 is limited in the disease (35, 36, 37), although the cause of the
shift toward the Th1 response and the precise role of Th1 vs Th2 in the
joint inflammation are unknown at present.
| Footnotes |
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2 Address correspondence and reprint requests to Dr. Shin Yoshino, Department of Microbiology, Saga Medical School, 849 Saga, Japan. E-mail address: ![]()
3 Abbreviations used in this paper: MT, Mycobacterium tuberculosis; AA, adjuvant arthritis; 11B11 mAb, anti-IL-4 mAb; RA, rheumatoid arthritis; PPD, purified protein derivative; DTH, delayed-type hypersensitivity. ![]()
Received for publication April 1, 1998. Accepted for publication August 19, 1998.
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