Method of Promoting Engraftment of a Donor Transplant in a Recipient Host
Description of Invention:
This invention pertains to a method of using donor natural killer (NK) cells to promote engraftment of a donor transplant in a recipient host, wherein the donor NK cells have been treated ex vivo, such as with an antibody (or antigenically reactive fragment thereof), a major histocompatibility molecule (MHC), a small molecule, a blocker of cell-signaling or an enzyme, such that the ability of the donor NK cells to interact with MHC molecules in the recipient host is compromised.
The method comprises adoptively transferring to the recipient host donor NK cells, which have been treated ex vivo to interfere with the ability of inhibitory receptors on the donor NK cells to interact with MHC molecules in the recipient host, simultaneously with, or sequentially to, in either order, the donor transplant, whereupon the engraftment of the donor transplant in the recipient host is promoted.
The present inventive method has applications in the context of the transplantation of a variety of tissues from the donor to the recipient host. In a preferred embodiment, the donor transplant is bone marrow. In an alternate embodiment, the donor transplant is an organ. Preferably, the donor or the recipient host is human.
Inventors:
William J. Murphy et al. (NCI)
Patent Status:
DHHS Reference No. E-151-01/0 filed 29 Jun 2001
Portfolios: Internal Medicine Cancer
Cancer -Therapeutics-Immunomodulators and Immunostimulants Cancer -Therapeutics-Other Internal Medicine-Diagnostics-Anti-Inflammatory (including Autoimmune) Cancer -Therapeutics Internal Medicine-Diagnostics
For Additional Information Please Contact: Mojdeh Bahar J.D.
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