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- Title
Long-term follow-up of recipients of allogeneic bone marrow grafts reveals no progressive telomere shortening and provides no evidence for haematopoietic stem cell exhaustion.
- Authors
de Pauw, Elmar S. D; Otto, Sigrid A; Wijnen, Juul T; Vossen, Jaak M; van Weel, Margreet H; Tanke, Hans J; Miedema, Frank; Willemze, Roel; Roelofs, Helene; Fibbe, Willem E
- Abstract
Summary. Accelerated telomere shortening has been proposed as a possible long-term risk of allogeneic bone marrow transplantation (allo-BMT). In this study we monitored telomere length in white blood cells (WBC), granulocytes, and naïve and memory CD4+ T lymphocytes in recipients of allo-BMT at long-term follow-up. Peripheral blood was collected from 10 allo-BMT recipients and donors at a median interval of 18 years after allo-BMT. Telomere length was determined using Southern blot analysis. Similar to results previously reported at short-term follow-up, a small difference in telomere length (0·1–0·3 kb) between recipients and donors was detected in WBC, granulocytes and naïve CD4+ T cells. Our data therefore provide no evidence for sustained telomere shortening in leucocytes, and render the possibility of long-term haematopoietic graft failure unlikely. In addition, we observed two phenomena that may be related to involution of the thymus. First, the number of naïve CD4+ T cells in the blood was significantly lower in recipients (0·4 × 109 /l) than in donors (0·7 × 109 /l) (P < 0·05). Second, telomeres in memory CD4+ T cells from recipients were on average 0·6 kb shorter than those from donors (P = 0·01). The latter may be related to the reported rapid peripheral expansion of memory T cells immediately after transplantation.
- Subjects
BONE grafting; BONE marrow transplantation
- Publication
British Journal of Haematology, 2002, Vol 116, Issue 2, p491
- ISSN
0007-1048
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1046/j.1365-2141.2002.03283.x