Santamaria, PereChakraborty, Mainak2017-08-102017-08-1020172017Chakraborty, M. (2017). Expanding Allergen-specific Tr-1 CD4+ T cells to treat Allergic Asthma (Master's thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/26039http://hdl.handle.net/11023/4009Asthma is a chronic inflammatory disease of the lungs, which is one of the most frequent chronic disease in industrialized nations. The associated morbidity and occasional mortality rates are secondary to an underlying dysfunction of the airway driven by immune-mediated inflammation. Our lab has been developing a nanoparticle based therapy to deliver antigen-specific peptide-major histocompatibility complex to treat autoimmunity, which triggers the induction and expansion of cognate autoregulatory CD4+ Tr1-like cells that suppresses the autoimmune response via secretion of anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-10 and TGF-β. We tested this therapeutic avenue in a chronic model of asthma in BALB/c mice, and found that the pMHC-NP therapy triggers allergen-specific Tr-1 cell formation and expansion that can suppress inflammation, promoting the resolution of airways hyper-responsiveness and airway remodeling. Asthma-relevant pMHC class II-coated NPs may therefore represent a viable alternative to current approaches to restore immune homeostasis in allergic individuals.engUniversity of Calgary graduate students retain copyright ownership and moral rights for their thesis. You may use this material in any way that is permitted by the Copyright Act or through licensing that has been assigned to the document. For uses that are not allowable under copyright legislation or licensing, you are required to seek permission.Immunologymaster thesis10.11575/PRISM/26039