A novel strategy to avoid graft-versus-host disease

VERMEULEN, MÓNICA; AMARAL MARÍA M; OSTROWSKI, MATÍAS; NAHMOD, KAREN; SALAMONE, GABRIELA; ALVAREZ ME; GEFFNER, JORGE

Córdoba

Congreso; A novel strategy to avoid graft-versus-host disease; 2005

ASOCIACIÓN LATINOAMERICANA DE INMUNOLOGÍA

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a major source of morbidity in allogenic bone marrow transplantation. In this work we analyze whether cotransplantation of immature dendritic cells (DC) may attenuate the severity of GVHD. DC were obtained from C57BL/6 bone marrow progenitors differentiated in the presence of GM-CSF for 9 days. BALB/C mice, irradiated at 950 Gy (137Cs source), received 8 x 106 bone marrow cells without 2 x 106 immature DC, both from C57BL/6 mice. Our results indicate that cotransplantation of DC markedly improved survival at day 30: 10% vs 50%, transplantation of DC without and with DC, respectively, n=20, p< 0.01). Consistent with this result we observed in the spleen of mice 10 days after transplantation: a) a better recovery in the number of T and B cells (p < 0.01 for both cell populations); b) an increase in the production of GM-colony-forming units (p < 0.01), and an increase in the frequency of T regulatory cells (p < 0.05). Thus, our results suggest that improving in hematopoietic stem cell engraftment induced by cotrasnplantation of DC may be due to the induction of regulatory T cells.