COLLAGEN-INDUCED ARTHRITIS IN DBA 1 MICE - CYTOKINE GENE ACTIVATION FOLLOWING IMMUNIZATION WITH TYPE-II COLLAGEN/

Immunization of DBA/1 mice with bovine type II collagen (CII) in compl ete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) leads to collagen induced arthritis as evi denced by joint inflammation. In this study, reverse transcription-pol ymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) was used to demonstrate the activation of genes encoding for IL-2, IFN-gamma, and IL-10 in the lymph nodes f rom both CII-immunized and control CFA-immunized DBA/1 mice, at Days 1 0, 40, and 70 after immunization, in the absence of any IL-5 or IL-13 transcription, By quantitative RT-PCR, the levels of IFN-gamma mRNA in response to CII could not be quantitatively differentiated from the I FN-gamma transcribed in response to CFA alone. In the joints of CII-im munized mice, IL-1 beta and IL-10 mRNA were found in the absence of IL -5 or IFN-gamma. Synovial IL-1 beta and IL-10 were expressed most stro ngly at the time of clinical symptoms, 40 days after immunization. Tog ether, these findings suggest that immunization with CII in CFA induce s a type 1 response against the adjuvant, giving a cytokine environmen t which influences the T cells responding to CII to become type 1 T ce lls. This is manifested here by the appearance of gene activation in s ynovial tissue of collagen-immunized mice, but not in adjuvant-immuniz ed control animals. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.