Long-term allogeneic hematopoietic cells transplantation survivors’ proinflammatory cytokine profiles compared to their respective donors and immunophenotype differences depending on GvHD history and infection status

Introduction: In the course of allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT) the donor’s hematopoietic progenitor cells are exposed to immense proliferative stress to reconstitute in the recipient the functional hematopoiesis. Moreover, recipients who develop infections or chronic graft-versus-host disease (GvHD) are subjected to further proliferative stress, especially in the lymphocyte subset. We hypothesized that allo-HCT may induce changes in proinflammatory cytokines profile and immunophenotype in the allo-HCT recipients, especially in patients with a chronic GvHD history. Material and methods: We compared the cytokine profile [interleukin (IL)-6, IL-10, and tumor necrosis factor α (TNF-α)] between long-term allo-HCT recipients and their respective donors and we analyzed cytokine profiles and the immunophenotype of lymphocytes in long-term recipients grouped according to their infection and GvHD history. Results: We found no differences in the proinflammatory cytokines between allo-HCT recipients and their respective donors, or between recipients grouped according to their infectious risk status. Immunophenotyping of recipients grouped according to their GvHD status revealed an increased percentage of B-cell presenting programmed death-1 in recipients without a history of GvHD. Conclusions: A lack of differences in proinflammatory cytokines concentrations between recipients and donors of allo-HCT would suggest that allo-HCT does not induce acceleration of the ‘inflammaging’-resembling phenomenon. No differences in the cytokine profile and immunophenotype between recipients grouped according to infectious risk status suggest that infectious risk is not reflected by the immunophenotype and cytokine profile. Furthermore, the lack of significant differences in immunophenotype of the recipients grouped according to a history of GvHD may suggest that in long-term survivors the immune system tends to stabilize with time