For patients with leukemia and other hematological malignancies, transplantation of hematopoietic stem cells (HSCT) can be a powerfully effective therapy. In addition to the desirable anti-tumor effect, transplanted cells can also attack the host tissue, resulting in graft-versus-host disease (GVHD). In this issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Arnab Ghosh and colleagues at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center found that expression of a protein that causes cell death, TRAIL, in transplanted cells was critical for an effective anti-tumor response. Immune cells engineered to express higher levels of TRAIL killed the cells that cause GVHD and increased anti-tumor activity. In an accompanying commentary, Nelson Chao suggests that new therapeutics may take advantage of TRAIL-expressing cells to promote an anti-tumor response without putting patients at risk for GVHD.
TITLE: Fratricidal TRAIL+T cells suppress GVHD and augment anti-tumor activity after bone marrow transplantation
AUTHOR CONTACT:
Arnab Ghosh
Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, New York, , USA
Phone: 646-888-2317; E-mail: ghosha1@mskcc.org
View this article at: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/66301?key=66e50de3cd0d7e99a4d8
ACCOMPANYING COMMENTARY
TITLE: Blazing a new TRAIL in hematopoietic cell transplantation
AUTHOR CONTACT:
Nelson J. Chao
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
Phone: 919-668-1011; Fax: 919-668-1091; E-mail: chao0002@mc.duke.edu
View this article at: http://www.jci.org/articles/view/69909?key=43f0101604c8f6bb12da
Journal of Clinical Investigation