Using immunohistochemical staining, we found no difference in cell infiltration between healthy skin and skin from challenge sites of non-responders after 48 h, indicating that the lack of response was not due to active down-regulation. In agreement with this, we did not find any significant up- or

down-regulation of gene expression in the challenge sites of non-responders after 48 h. Furthermore, mRNA expression in elicitation responses of patients with psoriasis and healthy controls could not be distinguished, either in the positive or negative reactions, indicating that the clinical selleck chemicals llc difference between the groups is not due to a difference in down-regulation at the elicitation site. Regulatory T cells have been found to be dysfunctional in suppressing auto-antigen specific effector T cells in various autoimmune diseases [22–25], but their regulation of environmental antigens were not investigated in these studies. It is theoretically possible that some sort of down-regulatory event took place before 48 h at which the biopsy was taken; however, a cellular response would be expected to be present at this time-point. The significance of a T helper type 17 (Th17) profile in

autoimmune diseases is well established through multiple areas of research, as reviewed by Steinmann [26], and patients with autoimmune diseases have Epacadostat been demonstrated to have higher than normal levels of circulating Th17 cells and cytokines such as interleukin (IL)-17, IL-6, IL-21, IL-22 and IL-23 [27]. We hypothesize that the highly Th17-directed cytokine milieu in patients with autoimmune diseases interferes with the mounting of a contact allergic response. This could be due to interference in the differentiation of naive T cells to become effector or memory T cells necessary for the contact allergic reaction or to regulation of antigen-presenting cells. Interestingly, in a murine study, Brandt et al. demonstrated that short-term incubation of in vitro-generated dendritic cells C-X-C chemokine receptor type 7 (CXCR-7) (DC) with IL-21 significantly reduced their potential to induce an antigen-specific CD8+ T cell proliferation [28,29].

Antigen-presenting cells, particularly Langerhans cells, play a pivotal role in the sensitization phase of contact allergy, as they are responsible for the processing, transport and presentation of allergens to naive T lymphocytes in the skin, draining lymph nodes. Cumberbatch et al. found that the function of epidermal Langerhans cells, specifically Langerhans cells mobilization and migration, is profoundly impaired in the uninvolved skin of psoriasis patients compared with the skin of healthy volunteers [30]. The authors hypothesized that this could be due to disease progression characterized by systemic changes that affect Langerhans cell function. The systemic changes could be due to a Th17-skewed milieu found not only in psoriasis patients, but also in patients with other autoimmune diseases.