Journal of Leukemia
Open Access

Abstract

Interferon Gamma/IL10 Ratio Production in Response to Host Antigens may Predict Acute Graft Versus Host Disease after Allogeneic Stem Cell Transplantation from a Sibling

Azza M Kamel, Nahla M El-Sharkawy, Eman K Abd El-Fattah, Raafat M Abd El-Fattah, Mohammed A Samra, Paul K Wallace and Hossam K Mahmoud

Background: Graft versus host disease (GVHD) continues to be the main concern of transplanters. Cytokines? contribution to its pathogenesis has been widely addressed in the literature. Previous studies have mainly evaluated the cytokine?s level after the actual occurrence of GVHD. In this work, we investigated the possibility of predicting the occurrence of acute GVHD through an experimental setup to mimic the response of the immune cells of the graft to the host antigens expressed by interferon gamma (IFN?) and interleukin 10 (IL10) production. Methods: The study included 45 patients receiving allogeneic HSCT from an identical sibling. An aliquot from the graft prior to infusion was used for in vitro culture for 3 days with patients? mitomycin treated mononuclear cells. IFN? and IL10 were measured in culture supernatant using microbead array technology. Results: Acute GVHD was encountered in 14 cases. IFN? was detectable in the culture supernatant of 9/14 (64.3%) cases with GVHD at a level of 6.2 - 19.000 with a median of 159.3 pg/ml versus 3/31 (9.6%) cases without GVHD at a level of 1.1, 8.1 and 80.01 pg/ml (p