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Creating immune privilege: active local suppression that benefits friends, but protects foes

Nature Reviews Immunology volume 8, pages 74–80 (2008)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 01 February 2008

Abstract

Natural regulatory mechanisms prevent inappropriate immune activation to self and innocuous foreign antigens. Here, we adapt the notion of immune privilege, which was originally applied to transplanted tissues, to consider how antigenic tumour cells and chronic pathogens might exploit natural regulatory mechanisms to become non-immunogenic. This conceptual approach reveals new mechanistic perspectives that may help to explain the paradoxical persistence of tumours and chronic pathogens, and suggests new opportunities to improve immunotherapy to treat these chronic inflammatory diseases.

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Figure 1: Immunogenic and non-immunogenic responses to antigenic stimuli.
Figure 2: Potential regulatory checkpoints that create and maintain immune privilege in local tissue microenvironments.
Figure 3: Regulatory APCs may suppress T-cell responses by inducing metabolic stress in naive and TReg cells that respond to antigen.

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  1. Andrew L. Mellor and David H. Munn are at the Immunotherapy and Cancer Centers, Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, Georgia USA.,

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Mellor, A. L. & Munn, D. H. Creating immune privilege: active local suppression that benefits friends, but protects foes. Nature Reviews Immunology 8, 74–80 (2008)

The authors have intellectual property interests in the therapeutic use of IDO and IDO inhibitors and receive consulting income from NewLink Genetics Inc.

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Mellor, A., Munn, D. Creating immune privilege: active local suppression that benefits friends, but protects foes. Nat Rev Immunol 8, 74–80 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nri2233

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