Immunotherapeutic strategies to prevent and treat human herpesvirus 6 reactivation after allogeneic stem cell transplantation.

ABSTRACT: Human herpesvirus (HHV) 6 causes substantial morbidity and mortality in the immunocompromised host and has no approved therapy. Adoptive transfer of virus specific T cells has proven safe and apparently effective as prophylaxis and treatment of other virus infections in immunocompromised patients; however, extension to subjects with HHV6 has been hindered by the paucity of information on targets of cellular immunity. We now characterize the cellular immune response from 20 donors against 5 major HHV6B antigens predicted to be immunogenic and define a hierarchy of immunodominance of antigens based on the frequency of responding donors and the magnitude of the T-cell response. We identified specific epitopes within these antigens and expanded the HHV6 reactive T cells using a GMP-compliant p

SUBMITTER: Gerdemann U 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3709638 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature