You are here

Article Text

Article menu
Download PDFPDF
Extended report
Sulphasalazine inhibits human antigen-specific immune responses in vivo
  1. Christina Trollmo1,*,
  2. Sveinn Gudmundsson2,*,
  3. Nils Feltelius1,†,
  4. Siv Rogberg1,
  5. Göran Smedegård3,
  6. Lars Klareskog1
  1. 1Rheumatology Unit, Department of Medicine, Karolinska Instititutet/Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden
  2. 2The Blood Bank, National University Hospital, Reykjavik, Iceland
  3. 3Pharmacia, Uppsala, Sweden
  1. Correspondence to:
    C Trollmo
    Rheumatology Unit, Department of Medicine, S-171 76 Karolinska Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden;tina.trollmo{at}ki.se

Abstract

Objective: To study the effects of the antirheumatic drug sulphasalazine (SASP) on the immune system by analysing systemic and gut-associated immune responses.

Methods: A total of 23 healthy volunteers were treated with either SASP or placebo for 5 weeks in a double-blind fashion and immunised 2 weeks after the initiation of treatment. Specific immune responses were triggered by subcutaneous immunisation with tetanus toxoid and by peroral immunisation with inactivated influenza vaccine. The effects of treatment on specific immunity to tetanus and influenza were evaluated by enzyme-linked immunospot assay quantifying the number of circulating specific and total antibody-producing cells (spot-forming cells (SFC)) at 6, 8 and 10 days after immunisation.

Results: An immunosuppressive effect of SASP on systemic immune response was observed with a decrease in the total number of IgG-SFC, IgG anti-tetanus SFC and IgG anti-tetanus antibody levels in serum. SASP also exerted an immunosuppressive effect on the mucosa-associated immune system as seen from its down-regulating effect on the total number of circulating IgA SFC.

Conclusions: These data show firstly that SASP exerts an immunosuppressive effect on defined immune responses to immunisation in vivo, and secondly that both mucosa-associated and systemic immunity are affected by SASP treatment.

  • ELISPOT, enzyme-linked immunospot, SASP, sulphasalazine
  • SFC, spot forming cells

https://doi.org/10.1136/ard.2006.059881

Statistics from Altmetric.com

    Request Permissions

    If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

    View Full Text

    Footnotes

    • ↵* These authors contributed equally to the study.

    • ↵† At the time of the study: Department of Medicine, Uppsala University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden.

    • Published Online First 19 September 2006

    • Competing interests: None.

    • Ethics approval: This study was approved by the local ethical committee at Uppsala University Hospital, Uppsala, Sweden.