Donor allorecognition of the recipient after hematopoietic transplantation can result in graft-versus-host disease, a potent graft-vs-leukemia effect as well as a graft facilitation effect. Danger signals, host Ag-presenting cells and minor histocompatibility Ag have recently emerged as major determinants of such an alloreactivity. A better understanding of the involved immune mechanisms, the development of novel immunomonitoring tools and cell engineering approaches should result in a significantly increased therapeutic index of allogeneic alloreactivity.
John Libbey Eurotext 2003