Low dose interleukin-2 selectively expands circulating regulatory T cells but fails to promote liver allograft tolerance in humans

Background & Aims: CD4+CD25+Foxp3+ regulatory T cells (Tregs) are essential to maintain immunological tolerance and have been shown to promote liver allograft tolerance in both rodents and humans. Low-dose IL-2 (LDIL-2) can expand human endogenous circulating Tregs in vivo, but its role in suppressing antigen-specific responses and promoting Treg trafficking to the sites of inflam-mation is unknown. Likewise, whether LDIL-2 facilitates the induction of allograft tolerance has not been investigated in humans.Methods: We conducted a clinical trial in stable liver transplant recipients 2-6 years post-transplant to determine the capacity of LDIL-2 to suppress allospecific immune responses and allow for the complete discontinuation of maintenance immunosup-pression (ClinicalTrials.gov NCT02949492). One month after LDIL-2 was initiated, those exhibiting at least a 2-fold increase in circulating Tregs gradually discontinued immunosuppression over a 4-month period while continuing LDIL-2 for a total treatment duration of 6 months.Results: All participants achieved a marked and sustained increase in circulating Tregs. However, this was not associated with the preferential expansion of donor-reactive Tregs and did not promote the accumulation of intrahepatic Tregs. Furthermore, LDIL-2 induced a marked IFNc-orchestrated transcriptional response in the liver even before immunosuppression weaning was initiated. The trial was terminated after the first 6 participants failed to reach the primary endpoint owing to rejection requiring reinstitution of immunosuppression.Conclusions: The expansion of circulating Tregs in response to LDIL-2 is not sufficient to control alloimmunity and to promote liver allograft tolerance, due, at least in part, to off-target effects that increase liver immunogenicity. Our trial provides unique insight into the mechanisms of action of immunomodulatory therapies such as LDIL-2 and their limitations in promoting alloantigen-specific effects and immunological tolerance.Clinical Trials Registration: The study is registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (NCT02949492).(c) 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of European Association for the Study of the Liver. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

Automated summary

This study investigated the role of low-dose IL-2 (LDIL-2) in maintaining liver allograft tolerance. The results showed that LDIL-2 expanded circulating regulatory T cells (Tregs) but failed to effectively suppress antigen-specific immune responses and promote the accumulation of intrahepatic Tregs. Furthermore, LDIL-2 induced a liver transcriptional response even before immunosuppression weaning. The study was terminated after the first 6 participants failed to reach the primary endpoint, requiring reinstitution of immunosuppression.