"Infectious" Transplantation Tolerance

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Abstract
The maintenance of transplantation tolerance induced in adult mice after short-term treatment with nonlytic monoclonal antibodies to CD4 and CD8 was investigated. CD4 + T cells from tolerant mice disabled naïve lymphocytes so that they too could not reject the graft. The naive lymphocytes that had been so disabled also became tolerant and, in turn, developed the capacity to specifically disable other naive lymphocytes. This process of "infectious" tolerance explains why no further immunosuppression was needed to maintain long-term transplantation tolerance.