Manipulating Immune Tolerance with Cellular Therapies

Dear Colleagues,

The last decade has been a time of intense development and advancement in cellular therapies. It was the era of harnessing regulatory T cells for treatment and prevention of graft versus host disease (GVHD), type 1 diabetes mellitus (DM1), multiple sclerosis (MS), or induction allograft tolerance. Multiple studies also focused on the immunosuppressive potential of mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). It was suggested that aside from regenerative and immunoregulatory potential, these cells are also non-immunogenic, and thus can be used in an allogeneic setting. Over this time, we could follow the outcomes of clinical trials where MSCs or MSC derived extracellular vesicles were used for the treatment of DM1 and GVHD. The first CAR-T cell-based therapies also demonstrated impressive clinical effects and were registered. During the last decade, we paid more attention to antigen specificity of immune cells in the context of their clinical application. We also came to understand that autoimmunity and cancer are different sides of the same coin, and, thus, through manipulating the balance between immune activation and immune suppression, we can impact the outcome of autoimmune diseases, graft rejection, GVHD, and cancer.

This Special Issue is dedicated to recent progress in cellular therapies focused on the induction of immune tolerance in the context of autoimmunity, graft tolerance, or GVHD, as well as on breaking immune tolerance to cancer. This Special Issue calls for original research and reviews that address progress and current knowledge in the methods of production of cells for immune therapies, describe mechanisms of intercellular interactions that might be targets for future clinical therapies, or can be used for the elaboration of novel therapeutic approaches. Finally, we are waiting for reports of animal studies and cell-based clinical trials. This Special Issue will help us to understand the immune system and will guide future studies to optimally design cellular therapies for the treatment of human and animal diseases.

Prof. Natalia Marek-Trzonkowska
Guest Editor

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