Methods of inducing immune tolerance using immunotoxins

Abstract

Provided is a method of treating an immune system disorder not involving T cell proliferation, comprising administering to the animal an immunotoxin comprising a mutant diphtheria toxin moiety linked to an antibody moiety which routes by the anti-CD3 pathway, or derivatives thereof under conditions such that the disorder is treated. Thus, the present method can treat graft-versus-host disease. Also provided is a method of inhibiting a rejection response by inducing immune tolerance in a recipient to a foreign mammalian donor tissue or cells, comprising the steps of: a) exposing the recipient to an immunotoxin so as to reduce the recipients's peripheral blood T-cell lymphocyte population by at least 80%, wherein the immunotoxin is anti-CD3 antibody linked to a diphtheria protein toxin, wherein the protein has a binding site mutation; and b) transplanting the donor cells into the recipient, whereby a rejection response by the recipient to the donor organ cell is inhibited, and the host is tolerized to the donor cell.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.