FTY720 treatment in skin allograft rejection Commodaro AG et al. CLINICS 2012;67(7):805-813 Figure 5 - FTY720-treated mice exhibit a decrease in the relative gene expression (qPCR analysis) of IL-10, IL-6, and IL-23 in the spleen cells, whereas IL-27 is increased. The relative gene expression in the spleen cells was evaluated in the Tx non-treated and Tx + FTY720- treated mice. The results are expressed as the means ¡ SD. allograft transplantation. We confirmed the previous data showing increased skin allograft survival and delayed macroscopic signs of tissue necrosis in the mice treated with FTY720. In the same model, we showed previously that FTY720 increases skin allograft survival when administered as monotherapy, as well as when combined with cyclos- porine, tacrolimus and sirolimus (22-25). The prevention of T lymphocytes from migrating to inflammatory sites is an effect already described for FTY720. Accordingly, our present results demonstrate a reduction in the number of graft-infiltrating cells and in the percentage of CD4+ T and Foxp3+ cells. In 2008, we demonstrated that the increased skin allograft survival in FTY720-treated mice was associated with diminished cell numbers in the spleen, blood and axillary lymph nodes (24). Our present results showed a reduction in the number of cells and percentage of CD4+Foxp3+ cells in the lymph nodes of mice treated with FTY720. Recently, we demonstrated that FTY720 was effective in suppressing experimental autoimmune uveitis (EAU), and this finding was associated with a reduction in the eye- infiltrating cells with either Treg or Th17 phenotypes (26). In the present study, at the early time points (day +5) after transplantation, FOXP3 gene expression in the spleen and 810