Tolerogenic Dendritic Cells in Clinical Practice

Dendritic cells (DC) play a critical role in maintaining immune tolerance to self-antigens and have become a promising immunotherapeutic tool for treating autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Tolerogenic DC (tolDC) with stable immunosuppressive function can be generated in the laboratory. These modified tolDC induce antigen-specific T cell tolerance in vitro and in vivo, and can prevent or reduce pathogenic autoimmune responses in experimental animal models of RA. The current challenge is to translate these findings and to develop tolDC for clinical application. In this review we discuss various key considerations for designing tolDC therapy for RA.