Transplantation of Anergic Histoincompatible Bone Marrow Cells

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Guinan et al. (June 3 issue)1 reported an interesting method for preventing graft-versus-host disease after bone marrow transplantation. CTLA-4–Ig was added to a culture of a mixture of irradiated mononuclear cells from the recipient and marrow cells from the donor. After 36 hours, the recipient and donor cells were infused into the patient. The incidence of graft-versus-host disease after transplantation of haploidentical bone marrow (from a donor mismatched with the recipient for one HLA haplotype) was lower than expected. The authors attribute the inhibition of alloreactivity to anergy of the donor T cells, mediated by blockade of the B7:CD28 pathway.