Citation

Cabral CMV, Braga WMT, Arantes AM, de Oliveira JSR, Colleoni GWB, et al. (2018) Expression of Foxp3 and Rorc Genes in Patients Undergoing Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation: Impact in the Development of Acute and Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease. Int J Blood Res Disord 5:032. doi.org/10.23937/2469-5696/1410032

Copyright

© 2018 Cabral CMV, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

ORIGINAL ARTICLE | OPEN ACCESS DOI: 10.23937/2469-5696/1410032

Expression of Foxp3 and Rorc Genes in Patients Undergoing Allogeneic Hematopoietic Cell Transplantation: Impact in the Development of Acute and Chronic Graft-Versus-Host Disease

Camila Marca de Veiga Cabral1,2*, Walter Moises Tobias Braga1, Adriano de Moraes Arantes1, José Salvador Rodrigues de Oliveira1,2, Gisele Wally Braga Colleoni1*# and Fábio Rodrigues Kerbauy1#

1Departamento de Oncologia Clínica e Experimental, Disciplina de Hematologia e Hemoterapia, Universidade Federal de São Paulo [UNIFESP], São Paulo, Brazil

2Serviço de Hematologia e Transplante de Medula Óssea, Casa de Saúde Santa Marcelina [CSSM], São Paulo, Brazil

Abstract

The aim of this study is to characterize Treg (FOXP3) and Th17 (RORC)-related genes in patients who underwent hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) and correlate them with graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) onset and patients' outcome. Fifty-one patients undergoing allogeneic HCT from matched related donors (MRD) were studied. Samples were collected before HCT, at acute (aGVHD) or chronic GVHD (cGVHD) onset, and 90 days post-HCT for those who did not have signs of aGVHD. FOXP3 and RORC gene expressions were assessed by real-time PCR (qPCR) as representatives of Treg and Th17 cells, respectively. We found increased expression of proinflammatory Th-17 related RORC in cGVHD compared with patient without GVHD; also, we found decrease in Treg-related FOXP3 expression in the samples at the time of GVHD when compared to its respective samples before HCT. Although these results could have therapeutic relevance, we could not identify genes' expression values to be used to predict GVHD onset, overall survival, non-relapse or relapse-related mortality.