T cell Migration and Graft Versus Host Disease

Abstract

Graft-Versus-Host Disease (GVHD) remains the major obstacle to a more favorable therapeutic outcome of allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). GVHD is mediated by immunocompetent donor T cells. The mature allo-reactive T cells, either CD4+ T cells or CD8+ T cells, within the “graft”, can mediate GVHD. In this review article, we also describe the GVHD pathophysiologic events after bone marrow transplantation, including GVHD target recipient organs with the distribution of donor T cells, and distribution kinetics of donor T cells with accompanying cytokine expression.