The lung is a prototypic organ that was evolved to reduce immunopathology during the immune response to potentially hazardous endogenous and exogenous antigens. In this study, we show that donor CD4+ T cells transiently induced expression of indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) in lung parenchyma in an IFN-γ-dependent manner early after allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). Abrogation of host IDO expression by deletion of the IDO gene or the IFN-γ gene in donor T cells or by FK506 treatment resulted in acute lethal pulmonary inflammation known as idiopathic pneumonia syndrome (IPS). Interestingly, IL-6 strongly induced IDO expression in an IFN-γ-independent manner when deacetylation of STAT3 was inhibited. Accordingly, a histone deacetylase inhibitor (HDACi) could reduce IPS in the state where IFN-γ expression was suppressed by FK506. Finally, L-kynurenine produced by lung epithelial cells and alveolar macrophages during IPS progression suppresses the inflammatory activities of lung epithelial cells and CD4 + T cells through the aryl hydrocarbon receptor pathway. Taken together, our results reveal that IDO is a critical regulator of acute pulmonary inflammation and that regulation of IDO expression by HDACi may be a therapeutic approach for IPS after HSCT.acute lethal pulmonary inflammation | IFN-γ | Th2/Th17 cells | indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase | aryl hydrocarbon receptor I ndoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO) is a rate-limiting enzyme of tryptophan catabolism along the kynurenine pathway. The immunosuppressive mechanism of IDO is mediated by depletion of tryptophan and/or the accumulation of catabolites collectively known as kynurenines (1-5). Recently, L-kynurenine, a product of IDO, has been identified as an endogenous ligand for the aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR), which is a ligand-activated transcription factor belonging to the steroid receptor family (6, 7). It is now clear that the IDO-AhR pathway contributes to immune homeostasis by promoting modulation of innate and adaptive immune responses. Whereas IFN-γ is the most prominent inducer of IDO in various cell types, IL-6 also can induce the enzyme expression in astrocytes and neuronal and cancer cells by stimulating the JAK/ STAT3 signaling pathway (8, 9). By contrast, IL-6 has been implicated in the pathophysiology of Th17-mediated pulmonary inflammations such as idiopathic pulmonary syndrome (IPS) (10, 11). Thus, the IL-6-STAT3 pathway might be immunosuppressive or immunostimulatory in a context-dependent way.The lung was evolved to develop tolerance mechanisms to avoid severe immunopathology during the immune response to pathogens (12, 13). High levels of IDO are expressed in the lung during microbial infections. IFNs seem to be required for IDO expression by microbial components (14, 15) and IDO expressed in epithelial cells prevents immunopathology mediated by Th cells after microbial infections (16). It is clear that defects in IDO expression in cystic fibrosis and granulomatous disease is associated with unchecked inflammation cause...

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Preconditioning of mesenchymal stem/stromal cells (MSCs) with the inflammatory cytokine IFN-γ enhances not only their immunosuppressive activity but also their expression of HLA and proinflammatory genes. We hypothesized that prevention of the upregulation of inflammatory cytokines and HLA molecules in IFN-γ-primed MSCs would render these cells more immunosuppressive and less immunogenic. In this study, we discovered the following findings supporting this hypothesis: 1) activated human T cells induced the expression of IDO1 in MSCs via IFN-γ secretion and those MSCs in turn inhibited T-cell proliferation in an AHR-dependent fashion; 2) there was no difference in the expression of IDO1 and HLA-DR in MSCs after priming with a low dose (25 IU/ml) versus a high dose (100 IU/ml) of IFN-γ; 3) the transient addition of bortezomib, a proteasome inhibitor, to culture MSCs after IFN-γ priming decreased the expression of HLA-DR, inflammatory cytokine genes and Vcam1 while increasing the expression of IDO1 and the production of L-kynurenine; finally, MSCs primed with a combination of a low dose of IFN-γ and bortezomib were more effective in inhibiting Th17-mediated idiopathic pneumonia syndrome (IPS) and chronic colitis than unprimed MSCs. Our results suggest that bortezomib significantly eliminates the unfavorable effects of IFN-γ priming of MSCs (increased expression of MHC molecules and inflammatory cytokines and cell aggregation genes) and simultaneously increases their immunosuppressive activity by upregulating IDO1. Taken together, our newly established MSC priming method may contribute to MSC-based cell therapy for inflammatory diseases.

We previously demonstrated that interferon γ (IFN-γ) derived from donor T cells co-opts the indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase 1 (IDO1) → aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AHR) axis to suppress idiopathic pneumonia syndrome (IPS). Here we report that the dysregulated expression of AP-1 family genes in Ahr−/− lung epithelial cells exacerbated IPS in allogeneic bone marrow transplantation settings. AHR repressed transcription of Jund by preventing STAT1 from binding to its promoter. As a consequence, decreased interleukin-6 impaired the differentiation of CD4+ T cells toward Th17 cells. IFN-γ– and IDO1-independent induction of Ahr expression indicated that the AHR agonist might be a better therapeutic target for IPS than the IDO1 activator. We developed a novel synthetic AHR agonist (referred to here as PB502) that potently inhibits Jund expression. PB502 was highly effective at inducing AHR activation and ameliorating IPS. Notably, PB502 was by far superior to the endogenous AHR ligand, L-kynurenine, in promoting the differentiation of both mouse and human FoxP3+ regulatory CD4+ T cells. Our results suggest that the IDO1-AHR axis in lung epithelial cells is associated with IPS repression. A specific AHR agonist may exhibit therapeutic activity against inflammatory and autoimmune diseases by promoting regulatory T-cell differentiation.