Scientists make T cell discovery that could improve stem cell transplant process

A breakthrough on how T cells operate after stem cell transplants could lead to improvements in the process

Researchers have made a new discovery on how T cell receptors operate after stem cell transplants, shedding light on how the process might be improved.
Published in the journal Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation, the study explained how T cells divide into a number of clones with receptors in order to identify foreign bodies.
Effectively, this split in T cells leads to a range of receptor families known as either variable (V), diversity (D) or joining (J) segments.
Using a circular diagram to better visualise the arrangement of these different DNA segments, the researchers observed a similar fractal order in the T cell receptor of stem cell donors.
Dr Amir Toor, who led the study, discovered that this pattern was disrupted in patients who received a stem cell transplant, with all patients displaying a lower level of complexity in their T cell receptor repertoire at three months after transplant.
"Attempting to restore the fractal order of a patient's T cell receptor repertoire by optimising the stem cell transplant process could serve as a valuable therapeutic target," Dr Toor said.
The scientists intend to continue to use high throughput sequencing of patient's T cell receptors to learn more about how the immune system recovers after stem cell transplantation.