Transplant trouble spot
Peyer's patches are the key site in initiating acute graft-versus-host reaction.
Jan 12, 2003
Acute graft-versus-host disease (a-GVHD) is one of the major complications in the allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) treatment of lympho-hemopoietic malignancies. The process is initiated primarily by immunologically competent cytotoxic T cells (CTLs) that express anti-host specificities, but the host lymphoid compartment in which the precursor CTLs are stimulated has been unclear. In the January 13 advanced online
Murai et al. used a murine acute graft-versus-host reaction (a-GVHR) model. They observed that a-GVHR was prevented when recruitment of donor T cells into PPs was interrupted either by disrupting the gene encoding chemokine receptor CCR5 or by blocking integrin α4β7–MAdCAM-1 (mucosal vascular addressin) interactions. In addition, they showed that mice deficient for...