Tomohide Hori, Shinji Uemoto, Taku Iida, Shintaro Yagi, Department of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary and Transplant Surgery, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan
Kagemasa Kuribayashi, Linan Wang, Mie Torii, Takuma Kato, Department of Cellular and Molecular Immunology, Mie University Graduate School of Medicine, Tsu 514-8507, Japan
Kanako Saito, Department of Hematology and Medical Oncology, Mie University Graduate School of Medicine, Tsu 514-8507, Japan
Author contributions: Hori T, Saito K, Wang L and Torii M collected previous reports and helped to review these papers; Iida T and Yagi S helped to collect important papers; Hori T wrote this review paper; Kuribayashi K, Uemoto S and Kato T supervised this review.
Conflict-of-interest: The authors have no financial conflicts of interest to declare.
Correspondence to: Tomohide Hori, MD, PhD, Department of Hepato-Pancreato-Biliary and Transplant Surgery, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, 54 Shogoinkawara-cho, Sakyo-ku, Kyoto 606-8507, Japan. horit@kuhp.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Telephone: +81-75-7513651 Fax: +81-75-7513106
Received: July 17, 2014 Peer-review started: July 18, 2014 First decision: October 28, 2014 Revised: November 2, 2014 Accepted: January 15, 2015 Article in press: January 19, 2015 Published online: March 24, 2015 Processing time: 249 Days and 22.4 Hours
Core Tip
Core tip: The perception of immunological changes induced by ultraviolet (UV) exposure has changed over the past several years. Although carcinogenesis and immunosuppression due to UV irradiation are regarded as detrimental, UV irradiation is also currently considered a useful tool to induce alloantigen-specific regulatory T cells (Tregs). There is great enthusiasm for the potential to develop strategies that can use Tregs for therapeutic interventions. Alloantigen-specific immunosuppression is an ideal therapy for allotransplant recipients. Although the full mechanism has yet to be determined, UV irradiation accompanied by alloantigen immunization produces a beneficial effect in transplant immunity via the induction of alloantigen-specific transferable Tregs.
