However, the effective use of allospecific Treg cells in favouring stable engraftment of donor

T cells, which despite their persistence did not precipitate hyperglobulinemia, indicates that Treg cells were able to suppress both donor alloresponses and autoreactive donor and recipient T-cell activity, while allowing the expansion of anergic or unpolarised donor T cells. Several previous experimental models of cGVHD have shown that autoimmunity may arise as a consequence of thymic dysfunction that results in loss of negative selection and escape of donor-derived autoreactive T-cell clones [43]. However, in the model we have used, transfer of donor T cells into unmanipulated recipients would have resulted in the primary induction of a donor recipient-directed alloresponse, which corresponds Nivolumab manufacturer to the recipient B-cell hyperactivity and lack of any effect on disease progression by depletion of B cells from donor inoculums. Therefore in this model, disease is induced by primary activation of autoreactive recipient B cells. It is therefore possible that the observed hyperactivity of recipient T cells is due to epitope spreading mediated by recipient B cells, which acts to exacerbate the autoimmune pathology. The emerging importance of

B cells in cGVHD has recently been highlighted Erlotinib order by elevated levels of B-cell activating factor, a cytokine promoting B-cell survival, being detected in patients with cGVHD [44], presenting B cells as novel targets for therapeutic strategies. Promising results have recently been reported with B-cell depletion to treat cGVHD in steroid-resistant patients [2, 45]. Using a model of SLE-cGVHD, Puliaev et al. used the

approach of promoting donor cytotoxic lymphocytes as a method of eliminating and therefore controlling recipient B-cell hyperactivity to prevent kidney disease pathology [46]. The findings of our study show that allospecific Treg cells are also effective therapeutics in preventing resulting B-cell-mediated disease pathology in cGVHD. Moreover, the capacity of allospecific Treg cells to mediate linked suppression in this semi-allogeneic model would allow them to be more effective at preventing epitope L-gulonolactone oxidase spreading of resulting autoimmunity and therefore exert control over broader effector arms of the immune response. In this study, we have also examined the immune reactivity of recipient and donor T cells following cGVHD and the effect mediated by Treg-cell therapy. An earlier study by Parkman et al. featured clonal analysis of T cells isolated from experimental aGVHD and cGVHD mice, and demonstrated that while aGVHD was associated with recipient-specific alloreactive donor T cells, cGVHD was associated with autoreactive donor CD4+ T-cell responses [47]. More recently, using a model of emergent cGVHD of murine bone marrow transplantation, Rangarajan et al.