Advances in the application of immunoadsorption in autoimmune encephalitis / 中华神经科杂志

Immunoadsorption can selectively remove pathogenic antibodies and has recently achieved good results in neuroimmune diseases. The type and titer of pathogenic antibodies play an important role in the clinical symptoms and severity of patients with autoimmune encephalitis. First-line immunotherapy for autoimmune encephalitis includes steroids, intravenous immunoglobulin, plasma exchange or immunoadsorption. Immunoadsorption selectively and rapidly eliminates autoantibodies and can be an effective therapeutic option as part of multimodal immunotherapy.

Nickel induces secretion of IFN-gamma by splenic natural killer cells

Although nickel hypersensitivity is known as a delayed-type hypersensitivity mediated by nickel-specific T cells, it is greatly influenced by other immune cells. Here we show that splenic natural killer cells (NK cells) directly or indirectly respond to nickel by secretion of IFN-gamma. Using enzyme-linked immunosorbent spot (ELISPOT) assays, we found that nickel-reactive cells readily secreted IFN-gamma when splenocytes were cultured in the presence of varying concentrations of nickel sulfate (NiSO4) for 24 h. However, nickel-reactive IL-2- or IL- 4-secreting cells were infrequent during the 24-h culture with NiSO4. Immune responses to nickel were innate, not adaptive, in nature since the frequency of nickel-reactive IFN-gamma-secreting cells did not increase upon previous exposure to NiSO4 and recombination activating gene (RAG)-1-deficient mice contained nickel-reactive IFN-gamma-secreting cells. The involvement of NK cells in the innate response to NiSO4 was confirmed since we could observe a significant reduction of the frequency of nickel-reactive cells in NK cell-depleted mice. Furthermore, the number of IFN-gamma secreting cells was significantly reduced in the ELISPOT assays when NKG2D was blocked by anti-NKG2D antibody. These results suggest that there is an early and rapid innate immune response to nickel, which is mediated by NK cells and the NKG2D receptor. The significance of the innate response to nickel is that it may contribute to development of the late T cell-mediated delayed type hypersensitivity against nickel.

Immunoadsorption preventing hyperacute rejection of highly sensitized recipients of renal allografts / 中华器官移植杂志

Objective To investigate immunoadsorption in the prevention of hyperacute rejection in highly sensitized recipients of renal allografts.Methods Immunoadsorption treatment was performed on 10 patients whose panel reactive antigen (PRA) was more than 40 %. The adverse effect and hyperacute rejection were observed.Results Two cases of acute rejection of renal allografts were found in highly sensitized recipients and reversed by the therapy of immunoadsorption and adjusting immuno-suppressive drugs.Conclusion Immunoadsorption treatment could effectively and safely prevent highly sensitized recipients from hyperacute rejection post-transplantation.