Suppression of adjuvant arthritis in Lewis rats by oral administration of type II collagen.

Adjuvant arthritis is induced by intradermal injection of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MT) in oil. The role of immunity to type II collagen (CII) in adjuvant arthritis (AA) has not been well defined. We found that oral administration of chicken CII given 3 micrograms per feeding on days -7, -5, and -2 before disease induction consistently suppressed the development of AA. A decrease in delayed-type hypersensitivity responses to CII was also observed that correlated with suppression of AA. AA was optimally suppressed by 3 and 30 micrograms of collagen type II variably by 300 micrograms, and not by 0.3 microgram or 1 mg. Oral administration of collagen type I also suppressed AA; only minimal effects were seen with collagen type III. Suppression was Ag specific: feeding CII did not suppress experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis; feeding myelin basic protein suppressed experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis, but not AA. Suppression of AA could not be consistently obtained by feeding MT. Suppression of AA could be adoptively transferred by T cells from CII fed animals and could be obtained when CII was fed after disease onset. Our results suggest that autoimmunity to CII has a pathogenic role in AA and raise the possibility that cross-reactive epitopes exist between CII and MT. Alternatively, the pathogenesis of AA may be dependent on developing immunity to CII. These results further demonstrate the effectiveness of oral tolerance as a means to suppress experimental autoimmune diseases.