Successful treatment of murine autoimmune cholangitis by parabiosis: Implications for hematopoietic therapy

There is a significant unmet need in the treatment of primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC) despite significant data on the effector pathways that lead to biliary duct damage. We focused attention on a murine model of PBC, the dominant negative transforming growth factor β receptor II (Tg) mice. To further define the pathways that lead to biliary pathology in these mice, we developed Tg mice deleted of CD4 cells (CD4^−/−Tg).Interestingly, these mice developed more severe cholangitis than control Tg mice. These mice, which lack CD4 cells, manifested increased levels of IFN-γ produced by effector CD8 cells. It appears that increased cholangitis is due to the absence of CD4 Treg cells. Based on these data, we parabiosed CD4^−/−Tg mice with established disease at 8–9 weeks of age with C57BL/6 control mice. Such parabiotic “twins” had a significant reduction in autoimmune cholangitis, even though they had established pathology at the time of surgery. We prepared mixed bone marrow chimera mice constructed from CD4^−/−Tg and CD8^−/− mice and not only was cholangitis improved, but a decrease in terminally differentiated CD8⁺ T effector cells in the presence of wild type CD4 cells was noted. In conclusion, “correcting” the CD4 T cell subset, even in the presence of pathogenic CD8 T cells, is effective in treating autoimmune cholangitis.