Successful immunotherapy induces previously unidentified allergen-specific CD4+ T-cell subsets

The mechanisms through which successful immunotherapy induces possible deletion, replacement, or reprogramming of T cells are unknown. By evaluating the expression of T-cell-related genes, and using appropriate multivariate statistical approaches, our data show that successful immunotherapy can induce previously unidentified CD4+ T-cell subtypes during treatment that could help to predict an "immune-tolerant" clinical phenotype identified after cessation of treatment. The ability to use "anergic" transcriptional phenotypes in single T cells to predict successful "immune tolerance" induction in the clinic setting, as suggested by our findings, could lead to transformative impacts in the field of immunotherapy.