Novel Strategies for Inducing Antigen-Specific Immunological Tolerance

Immune system protects us against infections and at the same time is responsible for autoimmune diseases such as asthma and arthritis. Moreover, controlling immune response is of utmost importance in setting of organ transplantation. Dendritic cells are the key players in regulating protective as well as autoimmune responses. Therefore dendritic cells can be utilized for bot initiation of protective immune responses as well as for controlling undesirable self-reactive/autoimmune responses. In this book, several novel strategies based on dendritic cells are described, which can be used to suppress unwanted immune responses. Furthermore, the strategies described can be used for induction of immunological tolerance in an antigen specific fashion without affecting immune response to other antigens. This is particularly desirable for these strategies can be used to control autoimmune responses without making the individual immunocompromised as is the case with several immunomodulatory drugs currently used in clinical settings.