Immunospecific drug design--prospects for treatment of autoimmune diseases.

Recent advances in elucidating the activation and regulation of the autoimmune processes have provided new approaches for selective immunotherapy. Three different strategies are described: autoantigen-based therapy utilizing immunospecifically designed macromolecules and peptides, T-suppressor lines and clones, as well as antibodies specific to the antigen-MHC complex. These modalities, the efficacy of which has been demonstrated for experimental allergic encephalomyelitis, may be adapted to other experimental as well as human autoimmune diseases.