Biology of blood and marrow transplantation : journal of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation
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Biol. Blood Marrow Transplant. · Dec 1995
Perforin- and Fas-mediated cytotoxic pathways are not required for allogeneic resistance to bone marrow grafts in mice.
Failure to engraft is a major complication in allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) using T cell-depleted donor marrow. Previous work has demonstrated that radioresistant host natural killer (NK) cells, CD8+ T cells, and T cells with NK markers participate in the active rejection of donor hematopoietic stem cells in murine models of allogeneic BMT. However, the precise role of cell-mediated cytotoxic mechanisms in marrow allograft rejection remains controversial. ⋯ The findings we report here demonstrate that strong allogeneic resistance remains largely intact in perforin-deficient and Fas-ligand-defective recipient mice. Thus, perforin- and Fas-mediated cytotoxic pathways are not required for resistance to bone marrow allografts in mice. We conclude that alternative pathways of cytotoxicity and/or soluble factors can mediate resistance to allogeneic BM.