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IMMUNOBIOLOGY
From the HLA Tissue Typing Laboratory and the BMT-Unit,
Istituto Scientifico H.S. Raffaele; and the San Raffaele Telethon
Institute for Gene Therapy (HSR-TIGET), Milan, Italy.
Little is known about the molecular characteristics of alloantigens
recognized by alloreactive T cells mediating hematologic stem cell
graft rejection. In particular, it has never been shown that such
alloantigens can be encoded by HLA-DP Allogeneic transplantation of bone marrow or
peripheral blood stem cells (PBSCs) is increasingly being used as a
therapeutic approach for a variety of diseases, including hematologic
malignancies, solid tumors, and inborn genetic defects. One of the main
caveats of hematologic stem cell transplantation is the
histocompatibility barrier between patient and donor. In fact, 2 severe
clinical complications, graft-versus-host (GVH) disease and graft
rejection, are frequently caused by alloreactive T lymphocytes specific
for nonself major or minor histocompatibility antigens. GVH disease is
one of the major causes of death after hematologic stem cell transplantation, with an incidence of up to 50%. The risk of graft failure or rejection is about 1% to 6% in transplants from
HLA-matched unrelated donors.1 Previous studies have shown
that alloreactive T cells causing GVH disease or rejection can
recognize as little as a single amino acid difference
between patient and donor major histocompatibility
antigens.2,3 In line with these findings, it is now
generally accepted that molecular matching for HLA class I A and
B and class II DR In the present study, we have investigated a case of PBSC allograft
rejection in which the patient and donor differed for a single mismatch
at HLA-DP in rejection direction. Donor-specific cytotoxic T
lymphocytes recognizing the mismatched HLA-DP Case report
Patient.
A 28-year-old female affected by Philadelphia chromosome-positive
chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) diagnosed in February 1997 was treated
first with hydroxyurea (Teofarma, Pavia, Italy) and cytarabine
(Pharmacia and Upjohn, Milan, Italy). Her blood counts stabilized to
normal values, and at the time of PBSC transplantation she was still in
the first chronic phase.
PBSC transplantation.
An extended family search detected the patient's 56-year-old father as
a possible donor. High-resolution HLA class I and II genomic typing
(indicated for the patient and donor in Table
1) was performed by standard polymerase
chain reaction (PCR) sequence-specific oligonucleotide probing
according to protocols of the XIth and XIIth International
Histocompatibility Workshop.16,17 A cytotoxic T-lymphocyte
precursor frequency (CTLpf) assay was performed in the
host-versus-graft (HVG) direction and mixed lymphocyte culture in both
HVG and GVH directions according to standard protocols described
elsewhere.18,19
Conditioning regimen.
The patient was treated with busulfan (GlaxoWellcome Segix,
Pomezia, Italy), 16 mg/kg administered over 4 days; cyclophosphamide (Asta Medica, Milan, Italy), total dose 120 mg/kg administered over 2 days; and antithymocyte globulin (Imtix, Milan, Italy), 5 mg/kg/d
administered for 4 days before transplantation.
Characteristics of the graft.
Donor CD34+ cells were mobilized by 5 days of
administration of granulocyte colony-stimulating factor (Rhone Poulenc,
Lyon, France), 15 µg/kg/d, and harvested by leukapheresis.
CD34+ cells were selected by immune affinity column and
further depleted of CD4+ and CD8+ T cells. The
patient received 5 × 106/kg CD34+ cells with
2.5 × 105/kg CD3+ T cells (<1%).
Evolution.
White blood cell (WBC) count was more than
1 × 109/L (1000/µL) (neutrophils 95%) on day
+17. On the same day, platelets were at 34 × 109/L
(34 000/µL) with no need for transfusion support. No further platelet reconstitution was observed until death. On day +40, the WBC
count was still 2 × 109/L (2000/µL) but with 30%
CD3+ T lymphocytes, which rose to 98% by day +45. A bone
marrow aspirate performed on day +45 showed general hypoplasia with
lymphocytic and plasmacellular infiltration. The patient's peripheral
blood had converted to a host-phenotype by immunofluorescence staining of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMCs) with an HLA-A2-specific monoclonal antibody (mAb) (see below). An attempt to reverse acute rejection by administration of antithymocyte globulin, steroids, and
cyclophosphamide was unsuccessful. On day +51, a second transplant using autologous PBSCs (3.8 × 106/kg CD34+)
mobilized by granulocyte colony-stimulating factor during the chronic
phase of the disease was administered. WBC and platelet counts at the
time of the second transplantation were
0.6 × 109/L (600/µL) (with no neutrophils) and
7 × 109/L (7000/µL), respectively. The second
transplant did not result in evidence of WBC or platelet engraftment
until the patient's death. The patient expired with multiple
organ failure on day +70 after the first transplantation, with the WBC
count at 0.4 × 109/L (400/µL) (no neutrophils) and
platelet count at 31 × 109/L (31 000/µL).
In vitro culture of PBMCs circulating at the time of graft
rejection and T-cell cloning.
PBMCs were isolated by Ficoll (Nycomed Pharma, Milan, Italy)
gradient centrifugation from a heparinized peripheral blood sample obtained from the patient at day +45 after PBSC transplantation and
frozen in 10% dimethyl sulfoxide (CH3SOCH3) in
liquid nitrogen until further use. For in vitro analysis, the PBMCs
were thawed and plated in culture medium consisting of Iscoves modified
Dulbecco medium (BioWhittaker, Milan, Italy), antibiotics, and 10%
pooled human serum supplemented with 100 U/mL interleukin-2 (IL-2)
(Chiron Italia, Milan, Italy). Cells were kept for 24 hours in a 5%
CO2 atmosphere in 24-well plates (Corning, Corning, NY) at
2 × 106/mL. Subsequently, they were either used directly
for in vitro functional assays (see below) or subjected to in vitro
restimulation. To obtain a T-cell line, 5 × 105 PBMCs
were plated in a 48-well plate (Corning) in culture medium in the
presence of 100 U/mL IL-2 and 106 irradiated (30 Gy [3000
rad]) donor PBMCs. To generate a panel of clones, PBMCs were plated at
0.3 or 1 cell per well in 96-microwell round-bottomed culture plates
(Corning) in culture medium supplemented with 100 U/mL IL-2 and a pool
of irradiated (30 Gy [3000 rad]) allogeneic feeder PBMCs
(105/well); irradiated (100 Gy [10 000 rad]) allogeneic
feeder cell line LG-2 (2 × 104/well); an
Epstein-Barr virus-transformed B-lymphoblastoid cell line (BLCL)
kindly provided by Dr Thierry Boon, Ludwig Institute for Cancer
Research, Brussels, Belgium (Table 1 shows HLA typing); and 1 µg/mL
phytohemagglutinin (PHA; Roche, Milan, Italy). In addition,
antigen-specific limiting dilution cloning was performed using
irradiated (100 Gy [10 000 rad]) donor BLCLs
(2 × 104/well) and the allogeneic feeder BLCL LG-2
(3 × 104/well).
Flow cytometry and mAb.
T cells were stained in 2-color immunofluorescence using the following
phycoerythrin (PE)- or fluorescein isothiocyanate (FITC)-conjugated mAbs (Becton Dickinson, Erembodegem, Belgium): CD4-PE, CD8-FITC, CD3-PE, CD56-FITC, CD19-PE. The HLA-A2-, HLA-A69-specific mAb BB7.2 20 was used in a 2-step staining with
goat-antimouse FITC mAb (Becton Dickinson). Labeled cells were analyzed
on a FACScan (Becton Dickinson).
In vitro functional assays
Cytotoxicity assays.
The cytotoxic activity of effector T lymphocytes was analyzed in a
standard chromium51 (51Cr) release assay as
described in detail elsewhere.21 Briefly, 1000 51Cr-labeled (NEN Dupont, Milan, Italy) target BLCLs were
incubated for 4 hours with effector cells at various effector:target
(E/T) ratios at 37°C in a 5% CO2 atmosphere.
Subsequently, the supernatant was removed and counted on a
Cloning of the full-length HLA-DP Retroviral vector-mediated transfer of HLA-DP Patient and donor matching
Characterization of patient PBMCs circulating during the time of graft rejection Around day +40 after PBSC transplantation, a rise in patient-derived CD3+ T lymphocytes was observed concomitantly with a loss of donor-derived neutrophils. PBMCs were obtained by Ficoll density separation from a blood sample drawn from the patient on day +45 after transplantation and are referred to hereafter as PBMCs-ex vivo. As demonstrated by immunofluorescence staining, most of these PBMCs were CD3+ T lymphocytes with a CD8/CD4 ratio of 9:1 (Table 2). Most of these cells were of patient origin, because they stained positive for the HLA-A2 antigen (Table 2). The T-cell receptor-V
repertoire of these T lymphocytes was analyzed by reverse transcription
PCR and found to be highly polyclonal, with representation of almost all V specificities (data not shown).
PBMCs-ex vivo were used without further in vitro restimulation in a
cytotoxicity assay against donor- or patient-derived target BLCLs. Weak
but specific cytotoxic activity against donor but not against patient
BLCLs was observed (Figure 1).
Transduction of patient BLCLs with the retroviral vector LDP
Isolation of a donor-specific T-cell line PBMCs-ex vivo were stimulated once in vitro with irradiated donor PBMCs in the presence of exogenous IL-2. After 30 days in culture, an oligoclonal T-cell line referred to hereafter as TCL+1 was obtained that contained more than 95% CD4+ T cells (Table 2). These CD4+ T cells showed the same target specificity as PBMCs-ex vivo, ie, they recognized HLA-DP 1*0901 in association with
either HLA-DP 1 or HLA-DP 2 on donor BLCLs as well as on
LDP 9S N-transduced patient-derived or allogeneic BLCLs (Figure
2). However, the absence of 1 of the 2 HLA-DP chains considerably reduced the efficiency of recognition, suggesting the presence in the T-cell line of clones with differential affinity for heterodimers of HLA-DP 1*0901 with either of the 2 HLA-DP chains.
To analyze the antigen specificity of donor-reactive T cells at the
clonal level, PBMCs-ex vivo were cloned by limiting dilution without
prior polyclonal restimulation in vitro. Two of 117 and 8 of 144 T-cell
clones obtained by nonspecific stimulation via PHA and by
antigen-specific stimulation with irradiated donor BLCLs, respectively,
showed specific recognition of donor BLCLs in cytotoxicity and
interferon-
The data from the present study suggest that the case of
allogeneic PBSC rejection characterized here was at least in part mediated by alloreactive CD4+ T cells recognizing a
donor-specific mismatched HLA-DP molecule. This is indicated by the
recovery of donor-specific cytolytic activity against HLA-DP In addition to CD8+ T cells, natural killer (NK) cells
might also have contributed to the process of graft rejection reported here. Indeed, the direct cytotoxicity against donor cells observed might be at least in part mediated by NK cells whose activity might
have been favored by missing self on donor cells lacking the
patient-specific HLA-A2 molecule. In this context, it should be noted
that the donor-recipient pair analyzed here was mismatched in the GVH
direction both for the "classical" HLA-A2 antigen and for
HLA-DP In line with previous observations that matching for HLA-DP The finding that HLA-DP
The authors thank Dr Catia Traversari and Dr Maria Grazia Roncarolo for useful discussions and Nadia Nobili for excellent assistance in tissue culture. Dr Francesca Poli is gratefully acknowledged for help in HLA-DP typing and Dr Thierry Boon for providing the LG-2 BLCL.
Submitted November 7, 2000; accepted April 19, 2001.
Supported by grants from the Italian Association for Cancer Research and from the Association "Antonio Castelnuova," Cermenate, Italy.
The publication costs of this article were defrayed in part by page charge payment. Therefore, and solely to indicate this fact, this article is hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. section 1734.
Reprints: Katharina Fleischhauer, HLA Tissue Typing Laboratory, Istituto Scientifico H.S. Raffaele, via Olgettina 58, I-20132 Milan, Italy; e-mail: katharina.fleischhauer{at}hsr.it.
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© 2001 by The American Society of Hematology.
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E. Zino, G. Frumento, S. Marktel, M. P. Sormani, F. Ficara, S. D. Terlizzi, A. M. Parodi, R. Sergeant, M. Martinetti, A. Bontadini, et al. A T-cell epitope encoded by a subset of HLA-DPB1 alleles determines nonpermissive mismatches for hematologic stem cell transplantation Blood, February 15, 2004; 103(4): 1417 - 1424. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF] |
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