Interference with cyclophosphamide-induced skin allograft tolerance by cyclosporin A

In a murine strain combination identical in H-2 Ag but disparate in minor histocompatibility (H) Ag consisting of C3H/He (C3H; H-2(k), Mls-1^b) mice as recipients and AKR/J (AKR; H-2(k), Mls-1^a) mice as donors, a permanent skin allograft tolerance can be achieved by the cyclophosphamide (CP)-induced tolerance system that consists of i.v. injection of donor spleen cells (day- 2) and i.p. injection of CP 2 days later (day 0). Such permanent take of allografts in CP-induced tolerant mice was interfered with by intramuscular injection of cyclosporin A (CsA) from day -5 to day -1 and their grafts were rejected by 21 days after grafting. Mls-1^a-reactive CD4⁺Vβ6⁺ T cells in the periphery, as the indicator to follow the kinetics of donor-reactive T cells, increased on day 0 and day 3 in the C3H mice treated with AKR spleen cells alone, whereas they disappeared rapidly from day 0 to day 3 in CP- induced tolerant mice. When CsA capable of interfering with IL-2 production and T cell proliferation was administered before CP treatment in CP-induced tolerance system, the number of CD4⁺Vβ6⁺ T cells in periphery did not increase on day 0 and 3, but increased on day 7 in contrast to the decreased number of those in CP-induced tolerant mice. On day 7, MLR against donor cells was decreased in CP-induced tolerant mice, but maintained in CsA- interfered tolerant mice. These result may indicate that the destruction of donor-Ag-stimulated, proliferating T cells by CP is interfered with by CsA, probably because CsA inhibits the proliferation of donor-reactive T cells at the time of CP treatment. Furthermore, these results also implicate that the protocol for immunosuppression with CsA and antimetabolites has to be designed carefully in clinical transplantation.