Immunoregulatory artificial lymph nodes restore antigen-specific tolerance in advanced multiple sclerosis.

A 3D-printed tolerogenic artificial lymph node (tol-aLN) induces durable antigen-specific tolerance and suppresses disease in advanced multiple sclerosis models.

• Why it matters: Effective antigen-specific therapies for multiple sclerosis are limited by poor homing of tolerogenic dendritic cells and rapid loss of immune regulation in inflamed lymph nodes, necessitating new approaches to restore immune tolerance.
• What they did: Researchers developed a porous gelatin methacrylate scaffold engineered for sustained CCL21 release, optimized for spatially confined dendritic cell and T cell interactions, and implanted it in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE) models, demonstrating attenuation of disease and induction of Foxp3+ T reg cells.
• The result: The tol-aLN therapy induced antigen-specific T reg cells that trafficked to immune and CNS tissues, suppressed inflammatory B cells and autoantibodies, and restored microglial homeostasis, enabling sustained remission without impairing systemic immunity.