We have established a novel immunotherapeutic approach involving dendritic cells (DCs) with potent immunoregulatory property (designated as regulatory DCs [rDCs]) for acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) and leukemia relapse in allogeneic bone marrow (BM) transplantation (BMT) in mice bearing leukemia. rDCs displayed high levels of MHC molecules and extremely low levels of costimulatory molecules. A single injection of rDCs following allogeneic BMT controlled the ability of the transplanted T cells to induce acute GVHD and graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect in the recipients bearing leukemia, and that resulted in protection from the lethality caused by acute GVHD and tumor burden. Thus, the use of rDCs may be therapeutically useful for the treatment of acute GVHD and leukemia relapse in allogeneic BMT.

To exploit a novel strategy to regulate T cell-mediated immunity, we established human and murine modified dendritic cells (DCs) with potent immunoregulatory properties (designed as regulatory DCs), which displayed moderately high expression levels of major histocompatibility complex (

Conclusion. These results demonstrate that FR-␤ expression is selectively elevated in RA synovial macrophages and suggest that MTX is transported through FR-␤ in RA synovial macrophages. The findings suggest that folate antagonists with higher affinity for FR-␤ would be useful in the treatment of RA.