A study, led by the Clinical Hematology Service of the Catalan Institute of Oncology of Girona (ICO)- Dr. Josep Trueta Institute for Biomedical Research of Girona (IDIBGI)- Josep Carreras Research Institute (IJC), has identified a genetic variant involved in the immune response that determines the success of hematopoietic progenitor transplantation.
Specifically, in this work, which has been published in the scientific journal 'Frontiers in Immunology', the relevance of the varieties of the LAG3 gene, which plays an important role in regulating the immune response, has been studied. The results obtained by the researchers from Girona suggest that those patients with higher expression of this gene could develop more complications in the form of infections or relapses of the disease.
The work, which is part of the activity of the Spanish Hematopoietic Transplant Group, opens the door to identifying patients with a higher risk of complications and to better understanding the role of new immunotherapy targets.
How was the study carried out?
In order to carry out this study, the data of 797 patients who had received a transplant from a compatible family donor at 16 hospitals throughout Spain were analyzed.
Genetic analysis of the donors showed that patients who received blood stem cells from donors with the LAG3 genetic variant had worse survival related to a higher incidence of relapses and post-transplant complications.
According to the first author of the study and clinical hematologist at ICO Girona-IDIBGI, David Cruz, "this study allows us to have a better understanding of the role that the immune response has on this transplant modality, and theoretically opens the door to be able to make a more careful selection of donors, provided that these results are replicated by other researchers".
The Girona Hematology group has been working on this line of research for more than 20 years and the results obtained in this study help to better understand the genetic determinants involved in the success of this type of transplant.
Reference article: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fimmu.2023.1066393/full
