Cyclosporine induced autoimmunity in newborns prevented by early immunization.

It has been shown in animal toxicity models that administration of Cyclosporine, CsA, to a pregnant mouse greatly increases the risk that the offspring will develop autoimmunity. Immunization starting at birth has been shown to prevent autoimmunity in other animal models of autoimmunity and early immunization is associated with the prevention of diabetes in humans. Experiments were performed to see if early immunization could also prevent CsA induced autoimmunity. Mice were injected with CsA during the first week of life and then immunized with killed human vaccines, including common pediatric vaccines, starting in the second week of life for a total of 3-4 doses. Administration of CsA during the first week of life resulted in the development of antigastric autoantibodies which were measured at week 8 of life. Only 12% of mice treated with CsA alone lacked anti-agastric antibodies compared to 61% in the group receiving the CsA and the diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, and anthrax vaccines (p = 0.0005). The results indicate early immunization can prevent CsA induced autoimmunity and provide further evidence that the effect of starting immunization in the first month should be compared to starting immunization after 2 months in humans.