Therapeutic activity of agonistic monoclonal antibodies against CD40 in a chronic autoimmune inflammatory process.

The use of agonistic monoclonal antibody against CD40 has emerged as one the most effective ways to boost immune responses against infectious agents or to fight cancer. Here, we report that the same monoclonal antibodies against CD40 (FGK45 and 3/23) previously used to elicit protective immune responses treated the autoimmune inflammatory process of chronic collagen-induced arthritis in DBA/1-TCR-beta transgenic mice, as well as collagen-induced arthritis in DBA/1 mice, both animal models of rheumatoid arthritis. This study indicates that agonistic monoclonal antibody against CD40 can potentially be used to treat chronic autoimmune inflammatory processes.