Regulation of alloimmune responses (GvH reactions) in vitro by autologous donor bone marrow cell preparation used in clinical organ transplantation

Differentiation of regulatory myeloid and T-cells from adult human hematopoietic stem cells after allogeneic stimulation

Introduction

Donor hematopoietic stem cell (DHSC) infusions are increasingly being studied in transplant patients for tolerance induction.

Methods

To analyze the fate of infused DHSCs in patients, we developed an in vitro culture system utilizing CD34+DHSCs stimulated with irradiated allogeneic cells in cytokine supplemented medium long-term.

Results

Flow cytometric analyses revealed loss of the CD34 marker and an increase in CD33+ myeloid and CD3+ T-cell proportion by 10.4% and 72.7%, respectively, after 21 days in culture. T-cells primarily expressed TcR-αβ and were of both CD4+ and CD8+ subsets. Approximately 80% of CD3+ T cells lacked expression of the co-stimulatory receptor CD28. The CD4+ compartment was predominated by CD4+CD25+CD127-FOXP3+ Tregs (>50% CD4+CD127- compartment) with <1% of all leukocytes exhibiting a CD4+CD127+ phenotype. Molecular analyses for T-cell receptor excision circles showed recent and increased numbers of TcR rearrangements in generated T cells over time suggesting de novo differentiation from DHSCs. CD33+ myeloid cells mostly expressed HLA-DR, but lacked expression of co-stimulatory receptors CD80 and CD83. When studied as modulators in primary mixed lymphocyte reactions where the cells used to stimulate the DHSC were used as responders, the DHSC-lines and their purified CD8+, CD4+, CD33+ and linage negative subsets inhibited the responses in a dose-dependent and non-specific fashion. The CD8+ cell-mediated inhibition was due to direct lysis of responder cells.

Discussion

Extrapolation of these results into the clinical situation would suggest that DHSC infusions into transplant recipients may generate multiple subsets of donor "chimeric" cells and promote recipient Treg development that could regulate the anti-donor immune response in the periphery. These studies have also indicated that T cell maturation can occur in vitro in response to allogeneic stimulation without the pre-requisite of a thymic-like environment or NOTCH signaling stimulatory cell line.

Microchimerism in promoting graft acceptance in clinical transplantation

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Infusions of bone marrow-derived cells together with 'space making' continue to be tested in clinical organ transplant tolerance protocols. These trials are based on the hypothesis that this might produce initial multilineage chimerism. There is some evidence that this in turn induces regulatory cells that control alloimmunity. Although a wealth of knowledge is available from animal models, this review deals with what we know or can speculate about donor bone marrow cells and chimerism in human organ transplantation.

RECENT FINDINGS

Calcineurin inhibitors are employed in most of these protocols to blunt the initial immune response. One protocol also has a stepwise regulatory cell generating treatment with sirolimus before total withdrawal. A number of donor chimeric lineages including stem cells, dendritic cells, myeloid precursors, and various lymphoid subpopulations have been described. Currently, it is recognized that the nature of cells that make up the chimerism could influence graft rejection versus acceptance. Tolerogenic donor chimeric cells may also generate regulatory subsets, thus controlling alloimmunity on two fronts.

SUMMARY

It might be speculated that prolonged and sustained regulation or possible anergy induced by chimerism may eventually lead to clonal deletion, thereby bringing about classical immunologic tolerance.

Favoring the risk-benefit balance for upper extremity transplantation--the Pittsburgh Protocol

Upper extremity transplantation is an innovative reconstructive strategy with potential of immediate clinical application and the most near-term pay-off for select amputees, allowing reintegration into employment and society. Routine applicability and widespread impact of such strategies for the upper extremity amputees with devastating limb loss could be enabled by implementation of cellular therapies that integrate and unify the concepts of transplant tolerance induction with those of reconstructive transplantation. Such therapies offer the promise of minimizing the risks, maximizing the benefits and optimizing outcomes of these innovative procedures.

Evaluation of the tolerogenic effects of donor bone marrow cells using a severe combined immunodeficient mouse-human islet transplant model

The immunoregulatory role of human donor bone marrow cells (DBMC) has been studied extensively in our laboratory using in vitro and ex vivo assays. However, new experimental systems that can overcome the limitations of tissue culture assays but with more clinical relevance than purely animal experimentation, needed to be generated. Therefore we have developed a new human peripheral blood lymphocyte (PBL) severe combined immunodeficient (SCID) mouse islet transplantation model without the occurrence of graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) and have used it to evaluate the tolerogenic effects of DBMC. Nonobese diabetogenic (NOD)-SCID mice were transplanted with human deceased donor islets and were reconstituted with human PBL (allogeneic to islets; denoted as recipient) with or without DBMC from the islet donor. It was observed that the most cellularly economical dose was 3000 islets per animal and that injection into the portal vein was better than implantation under the kidney capsule. Even though maximal lymphoid reconstitution was observed with 40-million fresh and anti-CD3 activated recipient PBL (conventional method), the mice developed severe graft GvHD. However, with the new method of reconstitution where animals were injected with 20-million anti-CD3-activated plus 40-million anti-donor-activated recipient PBL, no discernible GvHD was observed. More importantly, this latter method was associated with islet transplant rejection, which in turn could be abrogated by co-injection of the animals with DBMC. These in vivo results confirmed our previous in vitro observations that human DBMC have regulatory activity.

Immunosuppressants and skin cancer in transplant patients: focus on rapamycin

BACKGROUND

The responsibility of immunosuppressants for the increased risk of skin cancers in organ transplant recipients is widely recognized. Discerning the role of each drug is complicated owing to the fact that most patients generally have combinations of several medications.

OBJECTIVE

This article will discuss the role of the main immunosuppressants in the pathogenesis of skin cancers.

METHODS

This work consists of a review of the most significant publications.

RESULTS

Experimental and clinical studies suggest that corticosteroids, azathioprine, cyclosporine (CsA), and tacrolimus increase the incidence of skin cancer. Each drug may act through two different mechanisms including the impairment of the systemic immunosurveillance and a direct oncogenic effect. CsA was shown to be oncogenic independently of its immunosuppressive effect. By contrast, several works on mice have found that rapamycin inhibits tumor growth while being immunosuppressive. Furthermore, rapamycin was shown to inhibit several UV-induced mechanisms involved in skin carcinogenesis. Preliminary clinical studies have reported a lower incidence of skin malignancy in patients treated with rapamycin compared to CsA from the time of transplantation.

CONCLUSION

New immunosuppressive strategies for transplant patients with skin cancer are not only based on minimizing immunosuppression. Data suggest that rapamycin could have a protective effect against skin cancer. Further studies are required to assess accurately the efficacy and tolerance of rapamycin in these patients.

Immune responses and their regulation by donor bone marrow cells in clinical organ transplantation

Infusions of donor bone marrow derived cells (DBMC) continue to be tested in clinical protocols intended to induce specific immunologic tolerance of solid organ transplants based on the observations that donor-specific tolerance is induced this way in animal models. We studied the immunological effects of human DBMC infusions in renal transplantation using modifications in lymphoproliferation (MLR) and cytotoxicity (CML) assays. The salient observations and tentative conclusions are summarized in this review. Among many types of organs transplanted using DBMC at this center, it was found that the cadaver renal recipients (CAD) had significantly decreased chronic rejection and higher graft survival when compared to equivalent non-infused controls. DBMC infusion was also associated with a marginal and non-specific immune depression. It was also observed that the number of chimeric donor cells gradually increased in the iliac crest bone marrow compartment with a concomitant decrease in the peripheral blood and that the increase was more rapid in living-related donor (LRD)-kidney/DBMC recipients in spite of a lower number of DBMC infused (<25%) than in the CAD-kidney/DBMC group. In the LRD recipients with residual anti-donor responses, purified chimeric cells of either donor or recipient inhibited recipient immune responses to the donor significantly more strongly than the freshly obtained bone marrow from the specific donor or volunteer suggesting an active regulatory role for chimeric cells. A number of (non-chimeric) subpopulations of bone marrow cells including CD34(+) stem cells and the CD34(-) early progeny like CD38(+), CD2(+), CD5(+) and CD1(+) lymphoid cells as well as CD33(+) (but CD15(-)) myeloid cells down-regulated the MLR and CML responses of allogeneic PBMC stimulated with (autologous) donor spleen cells. These regulatory effects appeared to be refractory to the action of commonly used immunosuppressive drugs and occurred during the early phase of the immune response through cell-cell interactions. Most of these DBMC sub-populations had stimulatory capabilities, albeit markedly lower than donor spleen cells, but only through the indirect antigen presentation pathway. When co-cultured with allogeneic stimulators, purified CD34(+) cells were found to give rise both to CD3(-) TCRalphabeta(+), as well as CD3(+) TCRalphabeta(+) cells and, thereby, responded in MLR to allogeneic stimulation (but did not generate cytotoxic effector cells). Also, a number of DBMC subpopulations inhibited the CML and to a lesser extent the MLR, of autologous post-thymic responding T cells stimulated with allogeneic irradiated cells, mediated through soluble factors. Finally, non-chimeric DBMC also inhibited the proliferative and cytotoxic responses of autologous T cells to EBV antigens, inducing T suppressor cells, which in turn could inhibit autologous anti-EBV CTL generation and B cell anti-CMV antibody production. These studies all suggested a strong inhibitory property of a number of DBMC sub-populations in vitro and in vivo with the notion that they promote unresponsiveness.