Antigen-Specific Gene Therapy after Immunisation Reduces the Severity of Collagen-Induced Arthritis

Figure 4

Lentiviral treatment at day 31. (a) Design of experiment: Immunisation at day 0, booster at day 28, lentiviral injection with LNT-Ii-CLIP or LNT-Ii-CII at day 31 after CII immunization, and termination of experiments at day 54. LNT-Ii-CLIP construct, CLIP: class-II associated invariant chain peptide. (b) The clinical severity of arthritis (left 𝑦-axis) and levels of CII-specific antibodies (right 𝑥-axis). (c) The severity of histopathological synovitis and bone-cartilage erosivity (LNT-Ii-CLIP 𝑛=5, LNT-Ii-CII days 𝑛=6). (d) The gating strategy of CD4⁺CD25⁺ and subsequently Foxp3⁺ Helios⁺ cells. (e) The frequency of CD4⁺CD25⁺Foxp3⁺ Helios⁺  T_regs in blood at indicated time points after i.v. injection of LNT-Ii-CLIP or LNT-Ii-CII at day 31. The 𝑃 values are calculated using Mann Whitney U test. ^∗𝑃<0.05 and ^∗∗𝑃<0.01.

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