Modulation of lymphocyte subpopulations by extracorporeal photopheresis in patients with acute graft-versus-host disease or graft rejection.
Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) constitutes a promising treatment for patients with steroid-refractory acute graft-versus-host disease (aGvHD) after allogeneic stem cell transplantation and for patients with graft rejection after solid organ transplantation (SOT). There is an increasing body of evidence that modulation of lymphocyte subsets might play a crucial role in the mechanism of action in ECP. We therefore analyzed immunological effects concomitantly with clinical findings in patients under ECP therapy using multicolor flow cytometry. In a patient with steroid-refractory aGvHD and a patient with progressive bronchiolitis obliterans syndrome (BOS) after double-lung transplantation, clinical responses to ECP therapy were paralleled by an increase of CD4 + CD25hiFoxP3 + regulatory T cells and a decrease of T(EMRA) (CD3 + CD8+ CD45RA+ CD62L+ effector memory T) cells as well as of natural killer (NK)T cells. In summary, immunomonitoring of T cell subsets can elucidate the mechanism of action in ECP.
['Lorenz|Katrin|K|', 'Rommel|Katharina|K|', 'Mani|Jiju|J|', 'Jin|Nan|N|', 'Hilgendorf|Inken|I|', 'Ho|Anthony D|AD|', 'Freund|Mathias|M|', 'Schmitt|Michael|M|', 'Schmitt|Anita|A|']
D000328:Adult D000368:Aged D015704:CD4 Antigens D016827:CD8 Antigens D005434:Flow Cytometry D006084:Graft Rejection D006086:Graft vs Host Disease D006801:Humans D007694:Killer Cells, Natural D008297:Male D017893:Photopheresis D010865:Pilot Projects D033581:Stem Cell Transplantation D016176:T-Lymphocyte Subsets D014184:Transplantation, Homologous
Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) regulatory T cells GvHD NK cells effector T cells solid organ rejection (SOT)