High Level Secretion of HLA-G5 Might Inhibit the Incidence of Gvhd,

Abstract 4068

Human leucocyte antigen G (HLA-G) is a nonclassical HLA class I molecule, the tolerogenic role of HLA-G is highly supported in pregnancy immunization, tumor immune escape and organ transplant. HLA-G molecules also act as an inhibitor of the T-lymphocytes, NK cells and antigen presenting cells. HLA-G can be expressed as 7 different isoforms including 4 membrane-bound (HLA-G1 to -G4) and 3 soluble (HLA-G5 to-G7) proteins. The soluble HLA-G5 isoform encoded by intron-4 retaining spliced transcript has been previously detected in vivo in sera and grafts from solid transplanted patients who had significantly better graft acceptance. In the present study, we analyzed the expression levels of HLA-G in patients after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT) and investigated the relationship between HLA-G and GVHD. The levels of soluble HLA-G (sHLA-G) in the plasma of peripheral blood from 90 patients underwent HSCT were determined by enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Flow cytometry was used to detect the expression of membrane bound HLA-G (mHLA-G). The levels of mHLA-G of patients at pre-HSCT, +15d post-HSCT and +30d post-HSCT were similar with the normal individuals. High levels of sHLA-G in the plasma of recipients were found after allogeneic HSCT (allo-HSCT). The soluble HLA-G5 and HLA-G6 levels in the plasma of recipients at +15d post-HSCT and +30d post-HSCT were significantly higher than that at pre-HSCT, but the soluble HLA-G7 levels in the plasma of recipients at +15d post-HSCT or +30d post-HSCT were similar with that at pre-HSCT. In contrast, the levels of sHLA-G in the plasma of recipients had no significant change after autologous HSCT (auto-HSCT). High level secretion of HLA-G5 after allo-HSCT (the levels of sHLA-G increased more than 1.0 fold compared to the pre-HSCT group) significantly reduced the incidence of acute GVHD and chronic GVHD; High level secretion of HLA-G6 after allo-HSCT also significantly reduced the incidence of chronic GVHD, but had no influence to the incidence of acute GVHD; High level secretion of HLA-G7 after allo-HSCT had no influence to the incidence of acute GVHD or chronic GVHD. The increased levels of HLA-G5 after allo-HSCT which compared with the pre-HSCT group had a significant negative correlation with the severity of GVHD. In conclusion, the high level secretion of HLA-G5 might inhibit the incidence of acute and chronic GVHD. Detected the secretion level of HLA-G5 after HSCT might benefit to predict and evaluate the GVHD.