Outcome of cell suspension allografts in a patient with Huntington's disease.

For patients with incurable neurodegenerative disorders such as Huntington's (HD) and Parkinson's disease, cell transplantation has been explored as a potential treatment option. Here we present the first clinico-pathological study of a patient with HD in receipt of cell-suspension striatal allografts who took part in the NEST-UK multi-centre clinical transplantation trial. Using various immunohistochemical techniques, we found a discrepancy in the survival of grafted projection neurons with respect to grafted interneurons as well as a major ongoing inflammatory and immune responses to the grafted tissue with evidence of mutant huntingtin aggregates within the transplant area. Our results indicate that grafts can survive more than a decade post-transplantation but show compromised survival with inflammation and mutant protein being seen within the transplant site. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved