Increased expression of IL-4 and IL-10 and decreased expression of IL-2 and interferon-gamma in long-surviving mouse heart allografts after brief CD4-monoclonal antibody therapy.

In a mouse model for vascularized heart transplantation, CBA recipients of BALB/c hearts were treated with 0.25 mg of anti-CD4 (GK1.5) given intraperitoneally on the day of grafting and on days 1, 2, and 3 thereafter. This reduced splenic CD4+ cells to < 1% and all grafts survived > 100 days, compared with 8-10 days in untreated recipients. Despite recovery of the CD4+ cells after day 21, mice did not reject donor-type skin grafts at > 30 days, but rapidly rejected third-party skin, showing alloantigen-specific tolerance. The surviving heart grafts had significant mononuclear cell infiltration at time points from 7 to 100 days after transplantation. In the normal rejection process, where extensive myocyte necrosis was seen at 7 days, graft-infiltrating T cells produced IL-2 and IFN-gamma. These cells responded in vitro to IL-2 and displayed donor-specific CTL activity. In contrast, cells from CD4-mAb-treated hearts did not show significant growth in IL-2 or kill donor cells in CTL assays. In these nonrejecting hearts, immunohistology showed a diffuse infiltrate of T cells and macrophages by day 3. The allograft infiltrate increased rapidly thereafter in both rejecting and nonrejecting grafts, peaking at day 6-7 in rejecting grafts, when CD4+, CD8+, and IL-2R+ cells were present, with expression of IL-2, IFN-gamma, and IL-4, but only trace levels of IL-10. From 14 to 100 days, nonrejecting allografts showed a characteristic cytokine profile of dense IL-4 and IL-10 expression on intragraft leukocytes and endothelial cells, with low levels of IL-2 and IFN-gamma. This cytokine profile, characteristic of Th2 responses, was seen in all nonrejecting grafts and was not present in rejecting grafts. Allograft tolerance can studied by examination of the functions and cytokine profile of the cells within the graft, and tolerance develops in the presence of a Th2 response within the graft.