Control of GVHD: It's in our DNA!

Abstract

Selective depletion of the alloreactiveT cells causing graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) without loss of the graft-versus-leukemia (GVL) effect is the holy grail of hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT). In this issue of Blood, He et al demonstrate that inhibition of histone methylation leads to selective apoptosis of the alloreactive effector cells.1 Moreover, they demonstrate that this inhibition of histone methylation remarkably stops ongoing GVHD.