Prevention of lethal acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) by anti-CD134L monoclonal antibody (mAb).
Lethal acute GVHD was induced by transfer of B6 bone marrow (BM) cells with 2.5 × 107 spleen cells (B6 BMS) into lethally irradiated BDF1 mice. Ten mice in each group were given intraperitoneal injections of 1 mg of anti-CD134L mAb on the day before bone marrow transplantation (BMT) (day −1) and the day of BMT (day 0) and then 0.5 mg of anti-CD134L mAb twice a week until day 14 after BMT. For an acute-GVHD–positive control, control rat IgG was administered instead of anti-CD134L mAb. For an acute-GVHD–negative control, B6 T-cell–depleted BM was transplanted without spleen cells. Administration of anti-CD134L mAb to the B6 BMS group ameliorated both mortality (A) and loss of body weight (B) due to acute GVHD. The survival rate of the recipients treated with anti-CD134L mAb was 70% on day 80 after BMT, whereas all mice in the control-IgG group died within 43 days. Pooled results of 3 similar experiments are shown (total n = 30).
