Arron Munggela FOMA, Davood JAFARI, Kamran ALIMOGHADDAM, Seyed Ahmad HOSEINIAN, Mehdi MAHMOODI, Mohammadreza OSTADALI, Azita TALEBZADEH BONAKDAR, Mir Saeed YEKANINEJAD, Ali Akbar AMIRZARGAR

The impact of donor and recipient KIR genes and KIR ligands on the occurrence of acute graft-versus-host disease and graft survival after HLA-identical sibling hematopoietic stem cell transplantation

Background/aim: After allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), donor natural killer (NK) cells triggeralloreactions against potential recipient cells by their killer immunoglobulin-like receptors (KIRs). This study investigated whetherKIR/HLA genotypes and KIR haplotypes of donors and recipients exhibit a critical function in the prevalence of acute graft-versus-hostdisease (aGVHD) and persistence of the graft after HLA-identical sibling allo-HSCT for patients with hematological malignancies.Materials and methods: We studied KIR and HLA genotypes in 115 related donors and recipients (56 patients with AML and 59patients with ALL) who had received allo-HSCT from HLA-matched sibling donors. We evaluated 17 KIR genes and some alleles,including their ligands, using the PCR-SSP assay.Results: KIR gene frequency results between donors and recipients showed that donors had more activating KIR than their recipients.Chi-square comparison of KIR genotype frequencies in donors versus recipients revealed a significant difference (P < 0.001). We founda survival association between the donor lacking and the recipient having group B KIR haplotypes, although this was not statisticallysignificant.Conclusion: This study suggests that we could exploit NK cell alloreactivity as a part of the optimization of donor selection and potentialimmunotherapeutic regimens to help facilitate good engraftment and reduce the risk of aGVHD incidence after allo-HSCT.

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