Oral tolerance (was: immunologists read me)

[Shiv A. Prasad]

In article <p_travers-170194134814 at macmhc.cryst.bbk.ac.uk> p_travers at icrf.icnet.uk (Paul J Travers) writes:
>      TI: Inhibition of experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis by
>inhalation
>          but not oral administration of the encephalitogenic peptide:
>          Influence of MHC binding affinity
>      AU: Metzler_B, Wraith_DC
>      JN: International Immunology 1993 Vol.5 No.9 pp.1159-1165 ).  And
>the use of (re)stimulation with Ag in CFA and whether the adjuvant
>overrides any hyporesponsiveness set up by oral administration of antigen. 
>Has your lab looked at stimulating with Ag in IFA to see if there is a
>difference between fed and unfed animals?
>Paul.

In EAU, Ag/IFA does not induce disease, CFA is necessary.  Therefore since we
want to study inhibition of disease we use AG/CFA.  We haven't checked any 
other adjuvants.  The results show that oral tolerance inhibits disease 
induced by Ag/CFA, but as always, inhibition is never 100%.  So it's possible
that CFA-induced inflammation might override some of the tolerance, but in
general, the tolerance mechanism seems to control the inflammation.

The Ag/IFA is an interesting idea however, perhaps the non-pathogenic T cells
(specific for the immunizing bovine Ag, not the target rat Ag) might be 
stimulated by this.

Shiv