Transplantation Tolerance Induction: Cell Therapies and their Mechanisms

• Main Authors: Joseph R Scalea, Yusuke eTomita, Christopher R Lindholm, William J Burlingham
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-03-01
• Series: Frontiers in Immunology
• Subjects: Transplantation Tolerance; Treg; CD34+ cells; MDSC; HSCT; regulatory mechanisms
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fimmu.2016.00087/full

Cell based therapies have been studied extensively in the context of transplantation tolerance induction. The most successful protocols have relied on transfusion of bone marrow prior to the transplantation of a renal allograft. However, it is not clear that stem cells found in bone marrow are required in order to render a transplant candidate immunologically tolerant. Accordingly, mesenchymal stem cells, regulatory myeloid cells, T regulatory cells, and other cell types, are being tested as possible routes to tolerance induction, in the absence of donor derived stem cells. Early data with each of these cell types have been encouraging. However, the induction regimen capable of achieving consistent tolerance, whilst avoiding unwanted sided effects, and which is scalable to the human patient, has yet to be identified. Here we present the status of investigations of various tolerogenic cell types and the mechanistic rationale for their use in in tolerance induction protocols.