American Journal of Transplantation
American Journal of Transplantation
5 years ago

Belatacept-Resistant Rejection Is Associated With CD28+ Memory CD8 T Cells

E. A. Strobert, W. C. Wakwe, R. Townsend, D. V. Mathews, M. E. Roberts, C. Breeden, S. C. Kim, M. L. Ford, M. C. Lowe, C. P. Larsen, A. B. Adams, A. B. Farris, J. B. Jenkins
Recently, newer therapies have been designed to more specifically target rejection in an effort to improve efficacy and limit unwanted toxicity. Belatacept, a CD28-CD80/86 specific reagent, is associated with superior patient survival and graft function compared with traditional therapy, but its adoption as a mainstay immunosuppressive therapy has been tempered by increased rejection rates. It is essential that the underlying mechanisms associated with this rejection be elucidated before belatacept is more widely used. To that end, we designed a study in a nonhuman primate kidney transplant model where animals were treated with either a belatacept- or a tacrolimus-based immunosuppressive regimen. Interestingly, we found that elevated pretransplant frequencies of CD28+CD8+TEMRA cells are associated with rejection on belatacept but not tacrolimus treatment. Further analysis showed that the CD28+CD8+TEMRA cells rapidly lose CD28 expression after transplant in those animals that go on to reject with the allograft infiltrate being predominantly CD28−. These data suggest that CD28+ memory T cells may be resistant to belatacept, capable of further differentiation including loss of CD28 expression while maintaining effector function. The unique signaling requirements of CD28+ memory T cells provide opportunities for the development of targeted therapies, which may synergize with belatacept to prevent costimulation-independent rejection.

Publisher URL: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/resolve/doi

DOI: 10.1111/ajt.14349

You might also like
Discover & Discuss Important Research

Keeping up-to-date with research can feel impossible, with papers being published faster than you'll ever be able to read them. That's where Researcher comes in: we're simplifying discovery and making important discussions happen. With over 19,000 sources, including peer-reviewed journals, preprints, blogs, universities, podcasts and Live events across 10 research areas, you'll never miss what's important to you. It's like social media, but better. Oh, and we should mention - it's free.

  • Download from Google Play
  • Download from App Store
  • Download from AppInChina

Researcher displays publicly available abstracts and doesn’t host any full article content. If the content is open access, we will direct clicks from the abstracts to the publisher website and display the PDF copy on our platform. Clicks to view the full text will be directed to the publisher website, where only users with subscriptions or access through their institution are able to view the full article.