title: Analysis of T-cell repopulation after allogeneic bone marrow transplantation: significant differences between recipients of T-cell depleted and unmanipulated grafts.
abstract: We have studied the repopulation of the T-cell compartment in 27 patients transplanted with bone marrow from an (HLA)-identical sibling. Significant differences were found between recipients of unmanipulated and T-cell depleted grafts. Analysis of the T cells by a method based on amplification of minisatellite DNA regions showed that without depletion > 99.9% of the clones responding to a mitogenic stimulus after transplantation were of donor origin. In contrast, when the graft had been depleted with Campath-1M plus complement, a significant part of the T cells cloned during the first weeks after transplantation comprised of recipient T cells that had survived the preconditioning. This mixed population of low numbers donor and recipient T cells (19 +/- 31/mm3 at day 14) expanded rapidly (predominantly CD8+ T cells) during the first 2 months, without a significant change of the ratio of recipient/donor T cells. In 11 of 17 evaluable patients a late wave ( > 9 months) of donor T cells occurred. As a consequence, T-cell chimerism changed in favor of donor T cells and the CD4/CD8 ratio that had been reversed ( < 0.5) after the first expansion, normalized (1.5 +/- 0.51). Analysis of the T-cell receptor repertoire showed that in recipients of a T-cell depleted graft, the recipient as well as the donor T cells that repopulated the peripheral T-cell pool during the first month, were the progeny of a limited number of precursors. Because without depletion, when larger numbers of donor T cells had been cotransfused with the marrow, the repertoire was much more diverse, these data show that immediately after transplantation, the peripheral pool is repopulated primarily through expansion of circulating T cells.
authors.affiliation: Department of Internal Medicine, Hôpital Cantonal Universitaire, Geneva, Switzerland.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Roux
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Helg
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Dumont-Girard
authors.forename: B
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Chapuis
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Jeannet
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Roosnek
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D016026:Bone Marrow Transplantation; D002454:Cell Differentiation; D002455:Cell Division; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006085:Graft Survival; D006801:Humans; D008212:Lymphocyte Depletion; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D013601:T-Lymphocytes / Q000473:pathology*; D014184:Transplantation, Homologous