Investigation of biomarkers that enable early diagnosis of graft-versus-host disease

移植物抗宿主病（GVHD）是同种异体干细胞移植（allo-SCT）的致命并发症。GVHD模型小鼠显示淋巴细胞Notch信号通路加重GVHD。因此，我们利用人类样本对同种异体细胞移植后淋巴细胞上Notch的表达进行了全面分析。结果表明，Notch1仅在NK细胞上表达，在脐带血移植受者中的表达明显升高。在NK细胞强烈表达Notch1的受体中，GVHD没有恶化，但复发减少。这一结果表明，通过控制Notch信号可以增强移植物抗肿瘤效果，而不会使GVHD恶化。

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a fatal complication of allogeneic stem-cell transplantation (allo-SCT). GVHD-model mice showed that Notch signaling of lymphocytes exacerbates GVHD. Therefore we conducted comprehensive analysis of Notch expression on lymphocytes after allo-SCT by using human samples. As a result, Notch1 was expressed only on NK cells and the expression was significantly higher in recipients of cord-blood transplantation. Not GVHD exacerbation, but reduction of relapse was seen in the recipients whose NK cells expressed Notch1 strongly. This result showed the possibility that enhancing graft-versus-tumor effect without worsening GVHD by manipulating Notch signal.