Paricalcitol (19-nor-1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol) and calcitriol (1,25-dihydroxycholecalciferol) exert potent immunomodulatory effects on dendritic cells and inhibit induction of antigen-specific T cells

Abstract

In this study we show that, in all investigated aspects, paricalcitol retains significant immunomodulatory activity, comparable to calcitriol. Both VDR agonists impaired differentiation of immature dendritic cells (DCs) from monocytes.

The presence of VDR agonists during DC differentiation abolished their capacity to be activated and, despite potent Toll-like receptor mediated stimulation, VDR agonist-treated DCs remained in the immature state. The immunomodulatory potency of paricalcitol makes it a drug of interest in the therapy of chronic immune-mediated inflammatory diseases