Alterations between Effective and Ineffective Multipotent Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Used for Acute Graft Versus Host Disease Prophylaxis

Multipotent mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs) are applied for prophylaxis of acute graft versus host disease (aGvHD) after allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (allo-HCT). Not all samples of MSC used in National Research Center for Hematology were efficient for aGvHD prevention. The suitabilityof MSCs for aGvHD prophylaxis was studied. MSCs derived from the bone marrow of HCT donor were injected intravenously precisely at the moment of blood cell reconstitution. MSCs were cultivated for 3 passages. The characteristics of donor bone marrow samples including colony forming unit fibroblast (CFU-F) concentration, growth parameters of MSCs and the relative expression levels (REL) of different genes in them were analyzed. MSCs infusion induced a decrease in aGvHD development in patients with related and unrelated donors compared with the standard prophylaxis group. aGvHD prophylaxis with MSCs was ineffective in 13.5% of cases. In these MSC samples, a significant decrease in total cell production and the REL of CFH, FGFR1, PDGFRa and ICAM1 were observed. This study showed that MSCs injection resulted in a significant 2-fold decrease in aGvHD development compared with patients in the standard prophylaxis group. The effective MSC samples are characterized by higher total cell production and REL of CFH, FGFR1, PDGFRa and ICAM1 than ineffective.