Induction of Alloantigen-specific Anergy in Human Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells by Alloantigen Stimulation with Co-stimulatory Signal Blockade

Allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (AHSCT) offers the best chance of cure for many patients with congenital and acquired hematologic diseases. Unfortunately, transplantation of alloreactive donor T cells which recognize and damage healthy patient tissues can result in Graft-versus-Host Disease (GvHD)(1). One challenge to successful AHSCT is the prevention of GvHD without associated impairment of the beneficial effects of donor T cells, particularly immune reconstitution and prevention of relapse. GvHD can be prevented by non-specific depletion of donor T cells from stem cell grafts or by administration of pharmacological immunosuppression. Unfortunately these approaches increase infection and disease relapse(2-4). An alternative strategy is to selectively deplete alloreactive donor T cells after allostimulation by recipient antigen presenting cells (APC) before transplant. Early clinical trials of these allodepletion strategies improved immune reconstitution after HLA-mismatched HSCT without excess GvHD(5, 6). However, some allodepletion techniques require specialized recipient APC production(6, 7)and some approaches may have off-target effects including depletion of donor pathogen-specific T cells(8)and CD4 T regulatory cells(9).One alternative approach is the inactivation of alloreactive donor T cells via induction of alloantigen-specific hyporesponsiveness. This is achieved by stimulating donor cells with recipient APC while providing blockade of CD28-mediated co-stimulation signals(10).This "alloanergization" approach reduces alloreactivity by 1-2 logs while preserving pathogen- and tumor-associated antigen T cell responses in vitro(11). The strategy has been successfully employed in 2 completed and 1 ongoing clinical pilot studies in which alloanergized donor T cells were infused during or after HLA-mismatched HSCT resulting in rapid immune reconstitution, few infections and less severe acute and chronic GvHD than historical control recipients of unmanipulated HLA-mismatched transplantation(12). Here we describe our current protocol for the generation of peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) which have been alloanergized to HLA-mismatched unrelated stimulator PBMC. Alloanergization is achieved by allostimulation in the presence of monoclonal antibodies to the ligands B7.1 and B7.1 to block CD28-mediated costimulation. This technique does not require the production of specialized stimulator APC and is simple to perform, requiring only a single and relatively brief ex vivo incubation step. As such, the approach can be easily standardized for clinical use to generate donor T cells with reduced alloreactivity but retaining pathogen-specific immunity for adoptive transfer in the setting of AHSCT to improve immune reconstitution without excessive GvHD.