Inhibition of Vascular Adhesion Protein‐1 for Treatment of Graft‐Versus‐Host Disease in Mice

What is it about?

Graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) is a potentially fatal complication which can occur after hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT). GVHD is composed of acute GVHD (aGVHD) and chronic GVHD (cGVHD), and both of them can have a negative impact on HSCT patients' quality of life. The exact mechanisms of GVHD still remain to be elucidated. However, briefly, donor immune cells are conceived to attack recipient cells, and thereby severe inflammation and fibrosis are induced in multiple organs. As HSCT is increasingly prevalent for the treatment of diseases such as multiple myeloma, leukemia and germ cell tumors, the need for medical modalities to combat GVHD has been increased. Unfortunately, there are currently few to no effective methods to treat GVHD. This fact urged us to create an efficacious therapy for GVHD. The concept of our study is that if abnormal immune cell migration is prevented, GVHD can be mitigated. Indeed, our study has suggested that vascular adhesion protein-1 (VAP-1) is implicated in aberrant immune cell infiltration caused by GVHD and that inhibition of VAP-1 activity can be a promising strategy to tackle GVHD. Collectively, our study may be a significant asset to the treatment of GVHD and take GVHD research to the next level.

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