Flt3-Ligand Plays a Critical Role in Development and Function of CD8⁺/TCR⁻ Facilitating Cells in Bone Marrow,

Graft facilitating cells (FC) are a CD8⁺/TCR⁻ bone marrow subpopulation that enhance engraftment of purified hematopoietic cells (HSC) in allogeneic mouse recipients without causing graft-versus-host disease. They also enhance engraftment of suboptimal numbers of syngeneic HSC. FC induce antigen-specific CD4⁺/CD25⁺/FoxP3⁺ regulatory T cells in vivo. The major subpopulation in FC is resembles plasmacytoid precursor dendritic cells (p-preDC) both phenotypically and functionally. Treatment of mice with Flt3 ligand (FL) results in a significant increase in FC in peripheral blood (PB) and FL-expanded-PB FC enhanced HSC engraftment. In this study, we evaluated the role of FL in FC development using FL-KO mice. We first compared FC from FL-KO B6 mice with FC from B6 mice to evaluate the FC total cellular composition. The number of FC was significantly decreased in FL-KO mice compared to wild type controls (P = 0.0003). The number of p-preDC FC was also significantly decreased (P = 0.0001), suggesting that FL is important in the development of p-preDC FC. Next, we tested whether FL-KO FC facilitate engraftment of HSC in allogeneic recipients. FC were sorted from FL-KO B6 mice and HSC (C-Kit⁺/Sca-1⁺/Lin⁻) were sorted from B6 mice. 10,000 B6 HSC plus 30,000 FL-KO FC were transplanted into NOD recipients conditioned with 950 cGy of total body irradiation. Controls received 10,000 B6 HSC with or without 30,000 B6 FC. Only 36% (5 of 14) NOD recipients of B6 HSC alone engrafted and two mice survived up to 160 days (Figure ). Sixty-three percent (5 of 8) of recipients transplanted with B6 HSC + FL-KO B6 FC engrafted and only one mouse survived up to 160 days. Seventy-five percent (9 of 12) recipients of B6 HSC + B6 FC engrafted and seven of the mice survived more than 160 days. The level of donor chimerism in recipients of B6 HSC + B6 FC (57% ± 10%) was significantly higher than recipients of B6 HSC + FL-KO B6 FC (14% ± 3%; P = 0.003) or B6 HSC alone (22% ± 6%; P = 0.005). These data demonstrate that FL-KO FC fail to facilitate durable allogeneic HSC engraftment, suggesting that flt3-ligand plays a critical role in development of functional FC.