T cell activation is regulated by the interactions of surface receptors with stimulatory and inhibitory ligands. Programmed death-1 homolog (PD-1H, also called VISTA) is a member of the CD28 family of proteins and has been shown to act as a coinhibitory ligand on APCs that suppress T cell responses. Here, we determined that PD-1H functions as a coinhibitory receptor for CD4+ T cells. CD4+ T cells in mice lacking PD-1H exhibited a dramatically increased response to antigen stimulation. Furthermore, delivery of a PD-1H–specific agonist mAb directly inhibited CD4+ T cell activation both in vitro and in vivo, validating a coinhibitory function of PD-1H. In a murine model of acute hepatitis, administration of a PD-1H agonist mAb suppressed CD4+ T cell–mediated acute inflammation. PD-1H–deficient animals were highly resistant to tumor induction in a murine brain glioma model, and depletion of CD4+ T cells, but not CD8+ T cells, promoted tumor formation. Together, our findings suggest that PD-1H has potential as a target of immune modulation in the treatment of human inflammation and malignancies.
Dallas B. Flies, Xue Han, Tomoe Higuchi, Linghua Zheng, Jingwei Sun, Jessica Jane Ye, Lieping Chen
The Editorial Board will only consider comments that are deemed relevant and of interest to readers. The Journal will not post data that have not been subjected to peer review; or a comment that is essentially a reiteration of another comment.