Patent ID: 8076133

Claim:
A method of preparing antigen-specific regulatory Tr1 lymphocytes by activation and differentiation of CD4+ lymphocytes of a subject, comprising: separating lymphocytes from a sample of the subject's blood, activating said lymphocytes in vitro by co-culturing with artificial antigen-presenting cells comprising cells which express a class II molecule of the HLA system and a human LFA-3 molecule and which do not express any of the costimulatory molecules B7-1, B7-2, B7-H1, CD40, CD23 or ICAM-1, and which present a selected antigen associated to the class II molecule, recovering from said activated lymphocytes a population of activated CD4+ T lymphocytes comprising at least 10% of Tr1 lymphocytes which are specific for the antigen of the antigen-presenting cells, and isolating said Tr1 lymphocytes from said population of activated CD4+ T lymphocytes to produce said antigen-specific regulatory Tr1 lymphocytes.